[inception] Elevator Down
shut up okay. this is how i comforted myself after my accident.
Title: Elevator Down
Author: vikki
Pairings/Characters: Arthur-->Dom/Mal, Eames
Wordcount: 9,600 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; light swearing, mild(!?) torture, angst
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt here. Mal's shade takes to tearing Arthur apart; Arthur takes to putting Cobb back together again. Plus Eames being a clever bastard.
Mal wasn't always like this.
Well, obviously Mal wasn't always like this - she's dead, and what's left is something Dom cobbled together, a corpse sewn up with string. But Dom never really took to illegal extraction, never quite managed to get past the fact he's no longer a law-abiding citizen. (No, it's not that simple: he never gets past the reason he's no longer a law-abiding citizen.)
To Arthur, it's all the same thing: he keeps his eyes on Cobb's back, like always. If it's as much outside the dreams as in them, well, he's never minded.
*
The first time he sees Mal after she passed they're on a practice run; she's wearing an elegant black evening gown. Cobb's subconscious dances all around them and Mal passes in and out of view; Arthur has to look twice, and then he stares openly. "Cobb," he hisses, batting at his friend's elbow with a half-closed fist, and Cobb turns away from the bar with a frown. "What's Mal doing here?"
"What?" Cobb stares, then twists the other way to look over his shoulder. Mal is unmistakably coming their way now, a secretive smile curling her lips. Her eyes lock onto Cobb's, and Arthur watches as Dom's frown smooths into a look of disbelief. "You - she - shouldn't be here," he says as she draws close.
Later Arthur will reflect that he's not certain who Cobb was talking to.
Mal acts as if he didn't speak. "Dom," she says warmly, and slips her hand around his waist. Cobb stares; Arthur looks back and forth between them, and is startled when Mal turns her intense gaze. "Arthur." Her tone is friendly, but Arthur feels as though his hair is standing on end. "A lovely place you've built. A taste of Paris before the Revolution, yes? Truly elegant," she praises him.
It's the sort of thing she might have said before; she always appreciated details, and Arthur took great pains to please her. But now--
The string quartet puts down their bows; the spinning dancers come to a halt. Arthur is the subject of every stare in the room, except Cobb's.
Cobb is staring at Mal.
"What?" Mal asks, all innocence. "He is the dreamer, yes?"
It's just a practice run, so Arthur decides to cut their losses now. He reaches for his gun and fires twice: Cobb first, the muzzle against his temple (the mist of blood and bone speared across Mal's face like a mask), and again, the hot barrel burning the roof of Arthur's mouth as he pulls the trigger.
He sits up sharply from his recliner; Cobb is plucking out his IV and lurching to his feet. "That's enough for today," Cobb says, not looking at Arthur.
Arthur ignores him. "What," he asks, "was Mal doing there?"
"It's my subconscious," Cobb shoots back, maneuvering around Arthur's recliner and almost stumbling in his haste. He wants to spin his totem, Arthur knows. His own fingers are in his pocket, groping for his die. "I don't have any control over it." He walks rapidly towards the front hall and the hardwood flooring there.
Arthur almost calls Cobb on his bullshit. But Mal's only been gone four months, and Cobb's been away from home for three, and maybe Cobb should be allowed to dream of her sometimes.
*
The side effect of Somnacin and the PASIV device is that eventually, it's the only way a regular dream-sharer can dream. Arthur remembers what sleep was like before - as much as any regular dreamer remembers any of his or her dreams, in snatches. He feels no nostalgia for the spontaneity of it, but sometimes he misses the feeling of discovery. Nonetheless, he can't go back, and Arthur prizes his control. To know a dream is to be responsible for it, so he keeps himself in check.
Dom liked pushing the limits: for him, rules were meant to be broken. A stable dream within a dream was considered impossible until he came along. Mal loved to create; the subconscious was her endless canvas. In her dreams, Arthur could gaze across the sea for miles, and still spot a wharf or fishing boat specking the waves.
The first time Cobb said 'don't' about a dream was a month before Mal killed herself: "Don't create from memories, Arthur," he said, watching Mal's totem spin and spin and wobble and topple. "It blurs the lines between dreams and reality too much."
"I never would have considered," Arthur told him, truthfully. It's not why he likes dreamwalking. If Arthur were left to himself in an art museum, he would be in the surrealism wing.
Arthur dreams up paradoxes. Cobb dreams up his late wife. One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not safe.
*
When Arthur hears Cobb's totem roll to a stop, he steps into the foyer and leans his shoulder against the eave. "I don't care what you do while you're alone on the PASIV," he says, striving for a gentle tone, "But you've got to watch yourself while we're working."
He does care, but it's one of those things they don't talk about. There's always been a lot they don't talk about, but.
Cobb is crouched on the ground, fingers threaded through his hair towards the back of his neck. "I," he starts. Stops. Changes what he's going to say. "I can't believe she called you out. Why would she do that?"
Arthur thinks of her rich accent as she pronounced him the dreamer, the warmth of her smile and the strange coolness of her eyes. But it's Cobb, so he says, "I thought it - she - sounded very natural." If she wasn't a subconscious creation it would have been harmless. "The sort of thing she would have said in life."
"Straight out of memory," Cobb murmurs to himself. He picks up his totem and straightens, turning to Arthur. "I'm sorry," he says, clasping Arthur on the shoulder and squeezing. His eyes are sorrowful. "It won't happen again."
"Good," Arthur says, quirking his lips upwards. Cobb's hand slips down his arm and falls, and Arthur waves back. "I'll clean up here."
Cobb hesitates, and Arthur knows: he wants to hook up to the PASIV device tonight. But he shakes his head quickly, dropping his chin, and offers a ghastly smile. "All right. Thanks." He goes for his coat.
"Sleep well, Cobb," Arthur says.
Cobb chuffs a breath. It might be a chuckle.
*
It doesn't happen again, for three and a half weeks. They complete the job successfully; the payoff aids with a backload of expenses, but there's not much left over, and certainly not enough to bribe Cobb's way back home. So Arthur puts out feelers and soon enough they're started in on the next job - not soon enough, not really. Arthur watches Cobb go haunted at the edges; their supply of Somnacin dwindles. Arthur demands a pay advance and gets one, for the architect they don't actually need. Dom designs the level and Arthur designs the traps, as usual, and Arthur's certain their mark doesn't have the training that would necessitate a second level.
They walk the level and add detail, Cobb rolling the dream out as they go and Arthur making mental notes for where he can add traps next go-around. His subconscious is sparsely populated as usual. The library stacks rise high around them; the books are titled in Latin and French. Arthur pulls a book at random from a shelf and opens it idly while Cobb goes around the corner.
You are waiting for a train, the first page says, and someone brushes against him, too hard for Arthur's own subconscious. He looks up sharply and sees a flash of curling brunette hair, a pale shoulder, and she's gone, around the corner after Cobb.
"Mal?" Arthur asks. He reshelves the book and follows the projection. The stacks are too close together; he'll have to tell Cobb to allow some breathing room. It takes him a moment to remember where he is in the maze of books and he turns left, then left again. "Cobb?" he calls, raising his voice, and turns right.
An outstretched palm presses into his chest and Arthur stops short; Mal is wearing a pale sundress, sharply at odds with the mahogany bookshelves and dim lighting. Dust motes (and that is how Arthur knows this isn't his dream, as much as the evenly distributed weight of the die in his pocket) catch what sun there is and turns her visage slightly blurred and angelic. "Stop, Arthur," she says, her chin raised impetuously.
She makes a very striking image and Arthur almost remembers her like this, arguing passionately for grants or with Dom over a theory, but her eyes are shadowed. Arthur thinks she should be beautiful, but instead, she is terrible.
"Stop what?" Arthur asks quietly. He thinks Dom's willpower is incredible. He's put a lot of work into Mal: physically she is perfect. And he must have a massive amount of energy invested in her existence if she's walking into Arthur's subconscious.
Mal seems to sense his uncertainty. She relaxes her stance and lowers her chin; her eyes, big and blue, are full of longing. "Stop following him! Dom," she clarifies. "Can't you see? You're only holding him back."
Arthur raises one eyebrow, then the other. She's not talking about the dream, obviously. For a moment, he is shaken. Is this what Cobb really thinks of me? he wonders. But the more important question follows close on its heels. "What am I holding him back from?" he asks.
Mal steps forward, her hand still resting on Arthur's breastbone; she looks pleadingly up at him, searching his face. "From me," she whispers. "Please, Arthur, if you care about him - if you care about me - don't hold him back any longer."
Arthur delicately puts his hand over Mal's: he can't help but be as gentle with her now as he was in life. He folds his fingers around her palm and lifts her hand from his chest. "Mal," he says, "You're dead. You're not real."
Mal's eyes widen with shock; a moment later she slaps him with her free hand, sharp nails cutting his cheek, and she wrenches her other hand from his grip. "That may be so but he is happy with me," she says viciously as Arthur clutches his jaw. "He is meant to be together with me--!"
"Mal!"
Arthur looks up in surprise to see Cobb storming forward, face twisted angrily, his gun out and pointed Arthur's way.
He wakes up a second later, but Cobb remains asleep. 1, 2. 3. Arthur removes the IV line; he massages his jaw as he rolls his die across the cement floor. 25, 26, 27. He checks the time left on the PASIV device. 48, 49, 50.
He counts to sixty-two before Cobb opens his eyes with a sigh.
"You'll have to start from scratch," Arthur says.
Cobb blinks at him, reaching for the IV in his arm. Arthur watches him hesitate, Cobb's hand hovering uncertainly over his wrist. "Why?" he asks after a moment.
Arthur just looks at him, but Cobb resolutely stares back. "She knows the whole layout," he accuses, "and you can't control her. That's a problem."
"It doesn't matter," Cobb sighs, pulling the IV out reluctantly. "She won't do anything."
"Won't she?" Arthur presses his lips thin when Cobb doesn't answer, wearily getting to his feet. "How much did you see?" Arthur asks. Cobb tries to walk past him, but Arthur grabs his elbow. "Cobb. How much did you see?"
Dom finally meets Arthur's eyes with an icy glare; he jerks his elbow from Arthur's grip. "Get off me." He turns to walk away, a hand in his coat pocket.
"It is a projection!" Arthur snarls after him, fury rising in throat. "You hear me, Dom!?"
Cobb slams the bathroom door shut with enough force to make the table rattle, and Arthur scrubs his hand over his face.
*
They do start from scratch in the end, and it's done too hastily. In a fit of cruelty Arthur refuses to let Cobb near their shared PASIV device, and he keeps the supply of Somnacin close. They do only one practice run before the hit, short but clean. The old rich library is replaced with a well-lit modern one, all fluorescent lighting and the smell of fresh carpeting. Arthur supposes it will suffice, although he's discomfited enough throughout the run that Dom's projections continuously stare at him no matter what he's doing. Their conversations are all business, short and clipped.
The evening they go to intercept the mark after her knee surgery, Cobb says en route, "I'm glad you're here, Arthur."
Arthur blinks at him, but he can't look too long since he's the one driving. "I'm a little shocked you'd say that, seeing as I haven't let you dream all week," he says, matter-of-fact.
"No, I ..." Cobb trails off and they're both silent for a little while. "God, I can't tell you how much I ... miss Mal."
Arthur doesn't say 'I know'. He waits.
"I've let this get out of control," Cobb admits, much to Arthur's surprise once again. "That was ... I won't--"
"Don't say you won't let it happen again," Arthur warns.
Cobb shakes his head. "Then I'll try not to," he promises instead.
It's an empty promise - as if Cobb wanted either of those surprise visits to happen! - but Arthur accepts the apology, because it's Cobb. "I know." He doesn't tell Cobb about the traps he added, because right now he's pretty sure that's also telling Mal.
It's not until much later that he realizes he's afraid of her. By that point it's justified.
*
Things are fine for four months: not entirely Mal-free - that's impossible, Arthur realizes, but she drifts on the edge of his vision, or limits herself to Dom. (Arthur avoids her when she approaches, excusing himself to wander alone until Cobb comes back, always late.) She only appears when Arthur and Cobb are alone in the dream, at least where Arthur can see her: when they introduce a forger for a job, a British fellow calling himself Eames, she disappears.
(It's the only thing Eames is good for, Arthur tells himself in a bemused way, although it's a lie. Eames is excellent at his job, terrifyingly so, so much so that Arthur shows him a picture of Mal and warns him never to create a face similar.
"Found the blonde a little too convincing, did you, darling?" Eames laughs, because he's easygoing and casual and everything Arthur isn't and never wishes to be.
"Merely warning you away from the depths of your twisted imagination," Arthur corrects him coolly.)
*
Around the anniversary of Dom and Mal's engagement things get worse again. Phillipa's birthday has come and gone, the first one Cobb has missed, and James' is in less than a month. Arthur visits for him, of course, not that the children remember him well, but as present-bearer he becomes their instant friend. Their grandmother looks on in cool resentment, her eyes on the back of Arthur's head while Phillipa demands that he open the box and free the pony figurine inside. It feels like Mal, and Arthur folds his loaded die into the space between his digits.
Mal stands on street corners, cleans a bar, preens in a nightclub, ghosts the hallways, her little secret smile curling her lips until she sees Arthur. She frowns at him now, somewhere between confused and irritated, and Arthur isn't entirely surprised to discover he misses her smile.
They bring on a new architect for the Stein job, mostly because they're doing two layers and Cobb wants Arthur with him on the bottom. Arthur doesn't want to do two layers: Mal is everywhere, but she's more likely there. Nonetheless, with four dreamers - the new architect, Arthur, Cobb, and the mark - Arthur decides the chances of her appearance are minimal. Cobb having successfully kept her in control, he has no reason to question his friend, except to point out, once: "We could put this off, you know - say we need a week or two for more research."
Cobb looks at Arthur. His face is pinched. "Why?" Arthur just looks at him; Cobb knows why. Cobb drops his eyes in acknowledgment. "No; we'll stick with the timetable."
"All right," Arthur sighs, and doesn't tell Cobb that getting home in time for James' birthday is a futile dream. Extraction is tricky, the tools are expensive, and the interception of the mark often requires greased palms: there won't be enough money in this job, no doubt, to take Cobb home.
Arthur finds out that Stein has had training to deal with extraction, so he and Cobb make plans accordingly. Militarized dreams are the most risky: their first go-ahead extraction with violent projections took three tries to get right, and after that Cobb demanded forgers for those cases. But Eames isn't available (or isn't making himself available) and with Cobb pushing the timetable there isn't time for someone else less experienced. So Cobb suggests something new.
"On the second level, we'll tell Stein he's dreaming," Cobb says.
Arthur stares at him. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," he says, but Cobb presses back.
"It's a gamble, okay, but if we can get him to think that it's someone else's dream he'll turn on his own subconscious. Help us break through, even." Cobb rolls his lips between his teeth when Arthur says nothing, and presses his hands together, elbows on his knees. "I know this is asking a lot of you." An understatement: Arthur will be dreaming the second level, so he'll be the first one torn apart by an angry mob. "But if it works ..."
"You just miss experimentation," Arthur accuses him; Cobb has the grace to drop his gaze. "It's just as risky as militarization. Maybe more so."
"It's about the same risk as forging," Cobb protests.
"Wrong. Stein's been trained for this, so if he remembers, we might not get a second shot," Arthur snaps. "And he'll know our faces!" He rethinks that last statement: "Your face, anyway. If you're going to do this, I'd better not be anywhere near you while you're with the mark." The subconscious is funny that way: it's better at finding the dreamer than the subject usually is.
He shouldn't have made that exception, because of course Cobb takes it as tacit permission. "Pack heat," he says with a wan smile.
"Always do," Arthur grumbles.
*
Two years later Eames and Ariadne will ask what happened on the Stein job that makes Arthur so adamantly against 'Mister Charles'. Arthur's not lying about his subconscious tearing them apart, or how Stein found out he was dreaming. He just employs the vagaries of English pronouns too well.
*
The top level of the dream, left with the architect - a forgettable, if passable, co-worker, whose landscaping reminds Arthur vaguely of the early 80's, earth tones everywhere - is designed with a fortress of a hotel room to keep Stein's subconscious out. On the next level down Arthur parts ways with Dom almost immediately and regrets choosing Venice for the setting, no matter Stein's mental vulnerability to his childhood home.
He wishes for a car to hide in, or someplace else where he could be out of sight. Instead, he stands in the middle of a bridge with his arms folded on the railing; his options for death are best here (drowning, shooting - both better than being torn to pieces). His loaded die is locked in a safe on the third floor of a nondescript home four blocks away: there is something unsettling about being the dreamer and feeling the weight of it sit right. (For Arthur, this is the line that blurs reality too much.)
Projections eye him suspiciously and Arthur represses the urge to reach for his gun. It's a shock when an arm presses up against his own.
"Hello, Arthur," Mal purrs. "I'm a little surprised to find you here instead of standing in Dom's shadow."
Arthur straightens, turns, and starts walking away.
"Arthur!" Mal calls. He doesn't look back. "Arthur!" More insistently now, and he hears her high heels clicking on the paved stone sidewalk as she gives chase.
Arthur has every intention of escaping Mal, picking up his pace accordingly, but it occurs to him belatedly that this is the best situation he could have hoped for. Mal shouldn't be here, but at least she's here, not picking at her husband while Dom attempts to execute the most tricky extraction plan he's ever attempted. This is Arthur's job: to keep the way paved for Dom. He slows his steps, lets her follow, and leads her into the Penrose Steps trap three blocks down and one block east.
Mal stops halfway up the stairwell. "Oh, very nice," she says, while Arthur lingers near the top, waiting on her. "Very tricky. You didn't tell Dom about this part, did you?"
She's wearing a blue blouse and a white skirt this time, a combination Arthur recognizes from a time now almost a year past, but there is very little of Mal in her, Arthur feels. He leans against the railing. "No," he agrees; he didn't tell Cobb about this little park with its paradox stairway.
"So what do you think of my husband's gambit?" Mal asks breezily, approaching Arthur at a sedate pace. Unless he triggers the trap he can keep on walking, so Arthur ascends again and Mal follows; now she's on the top and he's near the bottom.
"It's pretty stupid," Arthur admits to her, and wonders if she'll repeat it to Dom later, like a half-remembered conversation Dom never actually had.
Mal laughs. "You never did like it much when we broke the rules." She turns and descends, too smart to topple from the final step. "And yet, with the paradoxes: always your favorite, yes?"
"Why are you here, Mal?" Arthur asks.
"There is one problem with the Penrose Steps," Mal replies instead, running the fingers of one hand over the railing. "To truly appreciate its simple elegance, the whole thing must be seen." She smiles down at Arthur. "And I brought a gun."
Arthur isn't too startled to draw his own weapon when Mal draws hers (Cobb's gun, actually, down to the silver-ringed barrel), but it's Mal. His shot goes wide; hers takes off the top half of his right ear. It's blindingly painful and nowhere near life-threatening: a brilliant shot, honestly, Arthur will reflect later.
Right now he screams and drops to one knee, clutching what's left of his ear. His gun bounces away. He barely hears Mal's heels clattering down the steps, but when her hands fist in his suit jacket he lurches upwards. She pushes him back, pressing his upper body into the wall and pinning him there. Arthur sucks his breath in through his teeth and lets it shudder out against his tongue, trying to focus his vision on Mal; she seems transfixed by his bleeding ear. She tries to pry his hands off the wound to see it better.
"He's here!" Mal calls first, loudly, although Arthur doesn't know who she's shouting to before she lowers her voice. "Poor Arthur," she breathes, her voice sounding as if it's far away. "Always chasing after Dom. If you would only let him go, you wouldn't need to hurt so much."
"You shot me!" Arthur grinds out. He tries for something more eloquent that might better elucidate his confusion, but Mal digs her nails into one of his wrists as she peels his hand away from his ear; her other hand clutches at the stump. Arthur's vision blurs from the pain and he kicks out blindly, hits her leg; she trips and falls with a startled shout. Arthur staggers to his feet and stumbles out of the Steps, right into the roar of a snarling crowd and a dozen waiting arms.
The Mr. Charles gambit has fallen through.
They break his wrists and fingers and ankles and ribs, dislocate his jaw, knock out six teeth, and wrench his left leg out of its hip socket before someone finally manages to cave in his skull, and Arthur wakes back up on the first level of the dream to a startled architect. "It's too early! Your dream will crumble--!"
"Check the mark," Arthur orders, curling his fingers over his whole right ear. "Keep him under for as long as you can."
"Done," the architect promises, darting to the other bed where Stein is beginning to shift in his sleep.
Arthur's die is evenly weighted in his pocket. He straightens his suit, rounds the bed, and approaches the back of Cobb's chair where he's still slumped with his eyes closed.
He shoves Cobb out of the overstuffed chair so hard he nearly bounces off the carpet. Arthur doesn't feel guilty for the vindictive pleasure this gives him until months later, and even then, he thinks it's justified.
*
Arthur and Cobb exchange eight words between kicking out of the dream and scattering. "Didn't work." "I noticed." "We'll get another shot." Then the mark is waking up and they run.
Arthur rolls his die across the sink of his hotel bathroom and sits on the toilet cover, resting his chin on his fingers. He's no student of psychology; Arthur knows just enough of the subject to understand how dream physics can change, how projections work. Mal is beyond his experience.
He fiddles with his phone and finally sends Cobb three text messages. Your wife shot me in the dream today. Then, Don't let it happen again, and finally, before Cobb can reply: I don't want to hear it.
*
Stein might have training, but he's no regular dream-sharer; even after bumping shoulders with Cobb in the street and down the hallway in the real world several times, he gives no sign of recognition. Arthur gives the go-ahead for a second try. This time, they're successful.
Arthur and Cobb don't talk about Mal. They don't talk about much of anything, except work.
*
Arthur hooks himself up to the PASIV device a few nights later. He's not in the habit of doing so. Creation doesn't bore him, but he has little interest in the act except for impossible physics. He finds dreaming to be difficult recreation.
That night, however, he opens his eyes in the old office and Mal is laughing with one of Arthur's projections, laughing at some joke Arthur didn't hear. She tucks her hair back behind one ear, the other hand wrapped around a coffee mug. When she looks up she beams at Arthur. "You're back!"
There is nothing cold in her eyes: she is as Arthur remembers her, smiles and laughter and fluttering hands. She kisses him on the cheek and Arthur stares at her, flummoxed. "Did you bring Dom? Oh, I miss Dom." She smells like her coffee: vanilla and walnut.
Arthur bends down to kiss her cheek in return. "I miss him, too," he admits, softly, in her ear. "But I can't be here."
Mal's expression crumples, her eyes impossibly large and sad. Arthur can't bear it. He turns and walks out the door into the sun, and walks the straight, paved pathway he creates until the timer on the PASIV device wakes him up.
*
Cobb's subconscious is no longer a safe place for Arthur to wander. Three practice runs are interrupted in the space of an hour: Mal with a knife, Mal with a gun, Mal and her bare hands trying to break his neck (the movies make it look so simple, but the strength it takes is incredible and not something Mal ever had - not in Arthur's dreams, anyway) until Cobb shoots him as a mercy.
They wake up within seconds of each other and Arthur rips out his line, surging to his feet. "What is your problem with me?" he demands.
Cobb's mouth works. "Mal--"
"Your problem. With me," Arthur reiterates.
"I don't have a problem with you," Cobb snaps, picking out his own line with such care as to make it obvious he's avoiding looking up. "I'm sorry," he apologizes for the third time that day.
Arthur runs his hand through his hair; it's getting too long. He's wanted to try slicking it back since he left the military but thought the look, along with the suits, might be too 50's mafia movie for his line of work. Not so much any more. "I know you are, but this is ..." he trails off, trying to find the right words. It's more difficult than he expected.
"I won't blame you if you've had enough," Cobb says to his wrist, almost too soft to be heard.
Arthur stares at the back of Cobb's neck, teeth clenched behind his lips. Is this what Cobb wants? he wonders. Is this what he actually wants?
He crouches and leans forward, elbows on his knees, and Cobb eventually responds by meeting his eyes.
"Pull yourself together," Arthur says, his voice pitched low. "And I'll see you tomorrow morning at the usual time."
Cobb looks at him: he can't say I can't control her because he can't make that admission aloud.
"We will figure something out," Arthur tells Cobb. "Tomorrow. Nine o'clock. Don't be hung over; we're meeting with the chemist."
Cobb smiles a little. Arthur's mouth quirks upwards in response, and he stands to pack up.
*
The conversation Arthur never knows happened:
"The team needs someone who understands what you're struggling with. And it doesn't have to be me, but then you have to show Arthur what I just saw," Ariadne pleads.
And Cobb's mouth works, a second of hesitation, before he demands another seat on the plane from Saito.
*
This is the last dream Cobb ever constructs for a job.
This is also the second time Arthur screws up his research.
The labyrinth is a restaurant. Private booths line the hallways. The whole thing, could it be viewed from the outside, is a double Mobius strip, which Arthur appreciates in its simple complexity. The only access from the first strip to the second is two rigged spiral stairwells - Arthur's work - leading to the penthouse 'above'. Cobb adds post-Renaissance paintings and deceptively delicate-looking candelabras to the walls; Arthur memorizes them as they go, for recreation during the job. The lighting is appropriately low, creating an illusion of sameness and privacy, which should lend Eames the quiet space he needs to keep the mark occupied. (Arthur has never envied Eames his job.)
Arthur finds Eames grating to work with, but a better psychoanalytic he couldn't ask for. He understands people as individuals, and he doesn't need a tour around Schneider's mistress' mind to know how she ticks. He meticulously researches her and when Eames puts on her face for their final practice run (tall, narrow, brunette, sleek and professional, hips canted and arms folded) Arthur claps his approval slowly.
"No need for sarcasm," Eames purrs, curling the mistress' lips into a smirk. "I know how good I am."
Cobb nods, walking around Eames as he strikes a pose, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Looks good. That wraps it up."
*
The mark populates the labyrinth much more heavily than Arthur, filling the booths with business parties and laughter. He sits with Cobb at the bar nursing a scotch on the rocks.
"Hey, baby," coos a projection with fake-blond hair and too much makeup, touching Arthur's arm. "You look like you've had a long day."
Arthur looks no such thing (hair slicked back, a dark suit to blend in), and he draws his elbow inwards. Cobb looks down at his drink and smiles; Arthur frowns. "Try him." He motions with his chin towards another projection, and the girl pouts but obeys.
He's accosted twice more, which is enough to make him twitchy, before Schneider finally saunters by with Eames on his arm. Eames laughs with an alto voice, covering his mouth with a slim hand, but although Schneider smiles he doesn't look at her, eyes roving over the bar. Arthur studiously does not look. He doesn't believe in feeling stares, but he imagines Schneider's gaze lingers on him, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. Does Schneider know he's dreaming? Why is Arthur (the dreamer) being singled out? But none of the projections stare needlessly, and conversation carries on as before, so Arthur says nothing.
Cobb twists to look over his shoulder as the mark passes by, and Arthur watches out of the corner of his eye as he nods. "They've sat." He puts down his drink and stands, shrugging back into his jacket to go to the penthouse and the safe inside.
Arthur stays where he is, but he twists in his seat to look out across the sea of tables, careful to never let his gaze linger too long on one place although all his attention is on the booth where Eames is fingering a glass of wine and Schneider is leaning back in his seat, neck fat bunched between his undone collar and his chin.
When a hand falls lightly on his shoulder Arthur almost doesn't turn to look. He opens his mouth to verbally turn down the projection, until it leans close and whispers, "Arthur."
Arthur turns his head with wide eyes. "Mal."
She smiles beautifully; her hand lingers on his shoulder, than smooths down his sleeve with the lightest of grips. "I have a surprise for you," she murmurs in his ear, her hair brushing his cheek.
Arthur nearly jumps when her hand reaches inside his jacket, his heartrate climbing rapidly. He slaps his hand down over hers, a fraction of a second too slow, and Mal dangles his gun from a fingertip. She laughs when he makes a grab for it, swearing - "Damn it, Mal-!" - and he has to bite his tongue and hang back to avoid making a scene that the projections will notice.
Mal's smile is nothing like gentle or kind. She slips Arthur's gun into her evening purse and crooks her finger at him. "Unless you want me to wander alone?" she asks, with an eyebrow raised.
Arthur curses under his breath and stands, buttoning his jacket. Mal holds out an expectant arm, and Arthur tightens his lips before taking her elbow. He tries to guide her towards the stairwell, but she has none of it, gripping his wrist and leading him unerringly towards the booth where Eames is flirting with Schneider.
"What are you doing?" Arthur hisses, covering her hand with his own, but he's limited in his movements as the dreamer and surrounded by so much of Schneider's subconscious.
Mal doesn't look at him. "Helping you," she murmurs, and drags him to a halt in front of the mark's booth.
Eames and Schneider both look up; Eames breaks character for the barest of moments, giving Arthur a questioning frown before it sharpens into something the mistress might have worn. "Pardon me?" he says, tightening his grip on Schneider's arm.
"Mr. Schneider," Mal says, disentangling her arm from Arthur's and resting her hand over her purse. "I found this lovely young man looking so lonely at the bar. May I introduce you?"
Arthur wants to run. He wants his gun back. Schneider looks intrigued and Eames reaches for Schneider's face, turning his head back. "I'm sorry, but we're ... busy," he breathes, pressing his forehead to Schneider's, and Arthur turns his face away when Eames kisses Schneider.
Mal develops a telling frown. Arthur wraps an arm around her shoulders, intent to turn her away and back down the hall to the spiral staircase that goes up forever, but a hand falls on the small of his back first. It's the fake blond from before, and she latches onto his free arm, runs a finger down his cheek. Arthur is startled to see her again, and completely distracted for a moment too long.
"Excuse me," Schneider says, standing up from the booth to Eames' whining protests; he's overweight and an inch taller than Arthur, and he brushes aside the projection. Arthur stiffens when he puts a beefy hand on his back, not far above where the blond placed hers. "Young man, take a walk with me." He pushes insistently and Arthur slides forward a step before he finds his balance, and he sees Mal stand aside with a patient, satisfied smile. He glances back at Eames, who watches helplessly as Arthur is led away. Watch her! he mouths over his shoulder, jerking his chin at Mal, and Eames frowns, but Arthur doesn't have a chance to see if he understood. "Tell me, what's your name?" Schneider asks, studying Arthur's face with a shocking intensity.
"John," Arthur says when nothing more intelligent or less generic immediately springs to mind, gathering himself behind stiff shoulders. He's not good at people like Eames is, but he's not blind by any means; he tries to think of any clues that might have shown Schneider actually prefers men.
"John, you're dressed too sharp to be drinking alone," Schneider says. "No friends, no co-workers to join you?"
They walk past booth after booth; he's going for the stairwell. The way Mal introduced Arthur undoubtedly gave Schneider unhealthy impressions. Arthur takes a risk and blocks off the nearest one; the conversation in the restaurant stops, and Arthur is suddenly the subject of every stare in the immediate area. Schneider notices nothing, standing too close to Arthur as he guides the point man along the aisle.
"I'm not very sociable," Arthur tells him, but he can't force himself to pretend to be receptive.
Schneider is starting to frown; he's looking for the stairs to the penthouse after all. His hand slips uncomfortably low on Arthur's back and Arthur clicks his teeth together when Schneider's pinky presses against the cleft of his rear end. "Excuse me a moment, John," he says, snapping his fingers at a passing waitress to gain her attention. She turns and quirks a brow at him and Schneider whispers in her ear, gesturing vaguely towards Arthur. The waitress nods, points. Arthur counts seconds on his breaths, wondering what's taking Cobb so long. He doesn't notice the sweat prickling his temples.
Schneider pushes Arthur forward again and the waitress winks at Arthur, making an 'OK' sign with her fingers. Arthur blinks - was that Eames? - and then they turn the corner and are at the restrooms.
"You first," Schneider says, motioning. "I'll follow shortly." Does he think he's being subtle? Not that Arthur cares: the men's restroom is a trap. He nods curtly and goes through the swinging door.
As soon as it's shut all the way, he turns on the faucet in the second sink. He gropes under the basin for the gun hidden there, but his fingers hit nothing. Arthur crouches and looks: it's gone.
Mal, he thinks. But now is his best time to lead the mark on a chase instead of enduring his hand, so he leaves the faucet on and steps back out of the men's bathroom, now on the other side of the maze and in the kitchen, and right into his own gun cocked at his chest.
Mal's lips are delicately parted in a pout, her eyes regretful. "I'm sorry, Arthur," she says, her tone worryingly close to Cobb's repeated apologies for her very existence. The harsh florescent lighting of the kitchen creates a cloudy halo in her hair.
She shoots him in the foot.
Arthur claps his hands over his mouth to suppress the scream and his back hits the wall; he slides down it, teeth grit and breathing hard through his nose. Mal sinks down in front of him, and he tries to focus on her face. She cups his cheek and leans forward, pressing her forehead to his. "Why do you not listen?" she asks, sorrowful.
Arthur gets his breathing under control, tries to concentrate; the utensils on the counters clatter with his efforts, though the projections notice nothing. Mal runs fingers through his hair and presses the hot barrel of the gun against Arthur's neck. "Dear Arthur." A knife vibrates off the tables and skitters across the floor, too close for comfort.
"Just kill me," Arthur dares her with gritted teeth, but Mal shakes her head.
"I have to make you understand," she says. "Dom, he's so torn. He wishes for me, always. He wishes for his children: I can give him that. What I cannot give him is you."
Arthur inches one hand along the floor, groping for the knife that fell nearby. She's only a projection, he reminds himself - reminds himself that he's killed her before, when she was alive, giving her the kick needed to claw back to reality, but he hesitates too long.
She shoves the gun into his shoulder and fires again. Arthur's vision goes dark at the edges and he screams; Mal claps her hand against his mouth to muffle him again. Arthur shoves hard at her chest and she falls back; he presses his hand to his shoulder and curls in on it, twisting to fall on his side. He pushes up on his elbow with gritted teeth and struggles to get his knees under himself, but he hears Mal let out an enraged snarl over the roaring of his ears and she falls on his back.
The fallen knife slits his suit's shoulder seam open, missing his skin by a breath, and slides home between the fine bones of his hand splayed on the floor. It's so sharp Arthur barely feels it.
He bucks and Mal rolls off his back with a soft grunt, and Arthur grabs the knife's handle with his good hand, blinking hard to see. The ground is shaking violently now and he has to take a moment to steady the dream, trying to think through the haze of pain. He pulls upwards, but the knife is stuck fast, the angle wrong for him to leverage his strength against Mal's rage-filled attack. Arthur breathes deep and harsh and closes his eyes, gathering himself, tense for Mal's next blow.
It doesn't come; she's crawled around to face him, and she slides the fingers of both hands into his hair. She takes a tight grip and forces his head up, features too close for him to properly focus on. "I will never let you keep Dom," she whispers. "He is unhappy here. I will bring him back home." She lets out a shaky breath as if she's trying to not cry. "I miss him."
Arthur lets out a weak laugh at that, and Mal bares her teeth. "You're not real," he breathes out.
"Yet you cannot attack me," Mal croons, lips twitching. There's a lot of truth to that. Arthur concentrates on breathing and keeping the dream steady (he wishes the kick would come soon), and Mal shakes his head a little as if to recapture his attention. "Let Dom go. For me, Arthur," she begs, and her grip loosens to smooth down the sides of his face.
Arthur reaches up with his free hand, spikes of ice shooting down his impaled arm and wounded shoulder as he puts his weight on them, and he touches her cheek.
"I'm not leaving," he tells her, breathless with pain. "So stop trying to chase me away."
"Arthur," Mal says insistently, as if he's broken her heart, and the bathroom door slams open.
Cobb's eyes are wide and haunted when he shoots Arthur through the skull.
*
Arthur wakes up to Eames' face - hardly the most comforting thing to see upon opening his eyes. He's got Arthur by the shoulder. "I was just about to shove you out of your chair," he says, letting go. "Hobbes is sedating the mark."
Arthur nods; he's reluctant to move his shoulder, which is throbbing still with phantom pain. "Was the extraction successful?"
Eames laughs roughly. "You goddamn wanker," he swears, straightening up as Cobb's eyes flutter open. "I thought the dream was going to fly apart right under my feet and you're asking about the extraction?"
Arthur presses his lips thin, but Cobb stands immediately, pinching the IV out of his wrist. Arthur belatedly removes his own line; Hobbes straightens up from where he's bent over Schneider, who's fast asleep on his bed. (Arthur pointedly looks at the mark, forcing down his discomfort.) "Success," Cobb says with a flat voice, and Arthur relaxes a little in his chair. Hobbes, the chemist, nods as if that's what he expected all along.
Eames looks back and forth between Arthur and Cobb. "Well, then, that's cause for celebration, considering--"
"Schneider should be under for another ten minutes or so," Hobbes interrupts, pulling the PASIV line from Schneider's wrist. "We need to get going."
Cobb is already handing Hobbes a roll of hundreds. "Great work." His tone says otherwise. "Let's get out of here." He nods to Eames and bends over the PASIV device, rolling the cords in; they can be cleaned later, at a more opportune time. Hobbes bolts; as the one paid under the table he has the least stake in correctly completed work.
Arthur jumps in surprise when Eames grasps Arthur's bicep and elbow - he's perturbed when Eames helps him to his feet and Arthur leans against him. He pulls away immediately, straightening his vest. "I'll be in contact with the payout," he tells Eames.
"Uh-huh," says the forger with a doubtful tone, and Arthur's forehead wrinkles into a frown. "Look, I just want to know what happened back there. First Schneider takes off with you - and don't get me wrong, love, you're beautiful, but that was an unexpected surprise - and then the dream's shaking apart. Was he that good?" Eames smiles to let Arthur know it's a joke.
Arthur punches him as hard as he can.
Eames swears, staggering back and clutching his nose (it's not broken - Arthur knows how that feels under his knuckles), and then Cobb is there between them. "Son of a bitch, Arthur," he says - the exasperation is the most emotion he's had in his voice yet. "Get out of here, Eames!"
Eames flicks Arthur off but obeys - he might be a flippant bastard but none of them want to get caught by the mark.
"Let's go," Cobb says, pressing a hand to Arthur's back. Arthur jerks away, an impulse reflex after Schneider, and Cobb gives him a wide-eyed betrayed look. Arthur can't manage to look apologetic. He shrugs into his suit jacket, grabs the PASIV device, and leads the way out the door, suitcase bumping against his knee.
*
After an extraction is completed, Cobb is usually the one who deals with wrapping the business up. Arthur makes a point of never asking after the information that's been extracted: he has no interest in being privy to corporate espionage. It's better if he's never the potential target of blackmail; he doesn't want to watch his own back while watching Cobb's. When Cobb is done with the followup phone calls, he'll undoubtedly call his children. It will be a couple of hours until he's done.
Arthur takes a long bath in his hotel room. His die lies on the ceramic tiles beside the tub, correct face up. He puts his feet up on the edge and rests his head back, closing his eyes. The hot water soaks away the twinges in his shoulder and hand, and his hair falls limp around his cheekbones. The next time they get a truly lucrative job he's getting a hotel room with a jacuzzi.
When his phone rings he snaps his eyes open; he has to make an undignified scramble to get to his cell on the sink, wiping his hand on the towel neatly folded on the toilet seat first. He half-expects it to be Eames, but the caller ID says 'Dom'. (Mal's number is in his phone too. Arthur doesn't generally consider himself sentimental, but he just keeps forgetting to take the time to clean his address book up.)
It's much earlier than Arthur expected, which is never a good sign. He picks up. "The client's unsatisfied," he says, not quite making it a question.
Cobb pauses, and Arthur thinks he was too late to pick up until a static-y breath hits his ear. "No; they're fine. But we need to talk. Come down to my room in an hour?" he asks.
Arthur presses his damp hair back with his free hand. It's either about how Arthur screwed up (he should have dug deeper, asked for more time, been more thorough with Schneider's late-night appointments) or it's about Mal. Arthur can take the chastisement, but: "If it's about Mal, I don't--" he starts.
Cobb cuts him off. "We need to talk," he repeats, insistent. "About Mal, and everything else. Just ... come down, Arthur."
Arthur closes his eyes. He's still half out of the tub, elbows braced on the toilet. "All right."
"Thanks," Cobb says, and hangs up.
Arthur drops his phone on the towel and falls back into the bathtub, sloshing water over the edge. He might need something for a headache.
*
Arthur lets the television run the news while he slicks his hair back into place and gets dressed. He considers ordering room service but decides he neither has the time nor the inclination to eat. He settles on the bed and lets stock options and sports reels wash over him.
Eames does call. Arthur ignores the call twice but, annoyed by the forger's insistence, picks up on the third. "Mr. Eames," he says coolly. "I believe I said I would contact you."
"That's me, always impatient," Eames replies. "Don't fret, darling, this isn't about the money."
"Then is this an apology for your intentional insult to my integrity?" Arthur flexes the fingers of his right hand, remembering the feel of Eames' nose against them.
"Nice alliteration, but also no. You should consider growing a sense of humor."
"I humor you all the time," Arthur says dryly.
"And as ever I appreciate your endless consideration," Eames replies with equal sarcasm. "Now, shall we talk about Cobb?"
Arthur shifts to sit up a little higher on the headboard. "What about Cobb?"
"That projection of his dead wife, specifically," Eames replies. "Just how much of a problem is she? I want to know strictly for job security reasons, of course."
Arthur is grateful Eames isn't in the room because his mouth works, flabbergasted, before he formulates an answer. "Nothing you should concern yourself with," he says, too slow.
"Mm, yes, sabotage is nothing to be concerned by." Arthur can see him nodding, gleaning more information from Arthur's statement than Arthur intended or even realized he interjected.
"If you have a problem with how we work, talk to Cobb." Arthur's voice is hot. "Or end our business relationship."
"I'm hardly going to get a straight answer out of him, am I," Eames almost laughs. "And you always have the best offers. I can take a certain amount of risk."
Arthur knows for a fact that Eames is a heavy gambler. He rolls his die around his palm, regretting that Eames is the best in the business of forgery. "Mrs. Cobb is hardly any threat to you, Mr. Eames," he says. "But her presence isn't uncommon."
"Mm-hmm," Eames murmurs. "... Look, Arthur. Take care of yourself."
Arthur puts down his die and mutes the television. "Pardon me, Mr. Eames?"
"I don't think Cobb ever really took to the whole illegal extraction thing. I've never seen someone with a guilt complex so bad it's taken on a life of its own, literally," Eames continues. "Knowing how bad you are with people, I'll tell you this: there's a lot of longing going on, of course, but as long as Cobb's hung up on the guilt - that she died, I'm guessing, maybe for the illegal whatnot, maybe for not dying with her - she's not going anywhere. And that's dangerous to everyone on his jobs."
Arthur is impressed by Eames' insight, but the conversation is making him deeply uncomfortable. "I'll take that under advisement," he says at length.
"Yah," Eames says. His tone rises with amusement. "Call me, love."
"Goodnight, Mr. Eames," Arthur says, and hangs up.
*
Arthur knocks on Cobb's hotel room door. Cobb opens the door almost immediately; Arthur can picture him on the ceramic bathroom floor, spinning his totem over and over again. His hair is disheveled and his button-down shirt is wrinkled. He steps aside to admit Arthur. "Come on in," he says, and follows Arthur back into the single, gesturing at a chair while he sits on the corner of his bed.
Arthur sits, pushing himself as far back into the overstuffed hotel chair as he can. His knees hit the edge of the seat. Cobb leans forward with his elbows on his knees and presses his flat palms together, dropping his head to look at his fingers. Cobb sighs deeply.
Arthur opens his mouth to ask what this is all about when Cobb doesn't speak for a while, but Dom finally says, "I want you to start looking for reliable architects."
Arthur raises his eyebrows, pulling his chin in a little. "All right."
"I'll keep an eye out as well," Cobb continues, still looking at his hands. "We need someone who is creative and quick. Drafters, the like. And you'll have to like them, because you'll be working closely with them." Cobb finally looks up. There is something hard behind his eyes, his jaw set. "I know you've taken to hiding traps from me, Arthur."
Arthur presses his lips thin. "Yes. I deemed it a little safer," he admits.
"I agree. From now on, I don't want to know anything about the layout." Cobb slashes his palms through the air. "Nothing. I'll just have to be smart enough to avoid your traps," Cobb says, smiling slightly without humor.
Arthur doesn't return the smile. "So you won't be building any more."
"I - no. Not anymore," Cobb agrees, letting his gaze drift towards the window. He stares for a long moment, then snaps his head back towards Arthur. "Mal knows what I know, after all." Cobb's throat is constricted, and his face reflects the sorrow in Mal's eyes when she shot Arthur in the shoulder. "I can't - I want -" he stammers, and he sits up and takes a deep sobering breath, scrubbing his hand over his face. "Arthur, I'm sorry. I never expected that she would ..." He looks away, bracing his head against his pointer fingers and thumbs. "I don't know why she's singling you out."
Arthur slides forward on his seat; there's not much space between Cobb and him when he sits like this, and it's almost uncomfortably close. "What is Mal?" he asks, his voice low.
Cobb glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "My wife. She's my wife." His voice goes hard and broken.
"Mal is dead," Arthur says, keeping his voice low. "Mal is a projection."
i couldn't hang onto her cobb breathes at her grave arthur at his side i couldn't hang onto her i couldn't bring her back to reality
"Don't you think I know that," Cobb grates out, scowling at the hotel window.
There's a lot Arthur and Dom don't talk about. There's always been a lot they don't talk about, but. "Dom," Arthur says, and Cobb looks sharply at Arthur. Arthur never calls Cobb 'Dom'. "I'm not leaving."
*
One day two years ago, Arthur was at work. He was expecting a phone call from his boss later in the evening, possibly a fax of a sketch illustrating a dream within a dream within a dream - a theory to present at the next conference.
When his boss called it was a stranger, a man weary with age and knowledge. Arthur got used to his new boss in his old skin, but his wife killed herself before Arthur could get to know her again. Her shade haunts them both, a familiar corpse sewn up with string.
*
Cobb takes half a breath and his mouth falls open a little. Arthur leans forward. "I'm not leaving," he repeats. "So you can stop trying to chase me away."
"I never," Dom starts, and stops, and then lets out a sharp little disbelieving laugh. "Thank you," he says to his knees, and swipes the edge of his fingers against the underside of his nose. He sniffs, gives his head a little shake, and looks up with suspiciously red eyes. "Thank you."
*
That's not the end of Mal's shade; she still appears in dreams and sabotages their extractions, but her success is limited now that Cobb no longer knows the layouts. Mal still shoots Arthur out of Cobb's subconscious. They go through architects like water. Eames comes and goes, easygoing and thoughtful and annoying as ever.
"You watching your back, Arthur?" he asks when Arthur takes him through a labyrinth without Cobb present, pointing out the traps and decor and the elevator that goes up when you press 'down'.
"I watch Cobb's back," Arthur answers, not looking at him, and he presses the down arrow. "As you surely know by now, Mr. Eames, that's my job."
fin
Title: Elevator Down
Author: vikki
Pairings/Characters: Arthur-->Dom/Mal, Eames
Wordcount: 9,600 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; light swearing, mild(!?) torture, angst
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt here. Mal's shade takes to tearing Arthur apart; Arthur takes to putting Cobb back together again. Plus Eames being a clever bastard.
Mal wasn't always like this.
Well, obviously Mal wasn't always like this - she's dead, and what's left is something Dom cobbled together, a corpse sewn up with string. But Dom never really took to illegal extraction, never quite managed to get past the fact he's no longer a law-abiding citizen. (No, it's not that simple: he never gets past the reason he's no longer a law-abiding citizen.)
To Arthur, it's all the same thing: he keeps his eyes on Cobb's back, like always. If it's as much outside the dreams as in them, well, he's never minded.
*
The first time he sees Mal after she passed they're on a practice run; she's wearing an elegant black evening gown. Cobb's subconscious dances all around them and Mal passes in and out of view; Arthur has to look twice, and then he stares openly. "Cobb," he hisses, batting at his friend's elbow with a half-closed fist, and Cobb turns away from the bar with a frown. "What's Mal doing here?"
"What?" Cobb stares, then twists the other way to look over his shoulder. Mal is unmistakably coming their way now, a secretive smile curling her lips. Her eyes lock onto Cobb's, and Arthur watches as Dom's frown smooths into a look of disbelief. "You - she - shouldn't be here," he says as she draws close.
Later Arthur will reflect that he's not certain who Cobb was talking to.
Mal acts as if he didn't speak. "Dom," she says warmly, and slips her hand around his waist. Cobb stares; Arthur looks back and forth between them, and is startled when Mal turns her intense gaze. "Arthur." Her tone is friendly, but Arthur feels as though his hair is standing on end. "A lovely place you've built. A taste of Paris before the Revolution, yes? Truly elegant," she praises him.
It's the sort of thing she might have said before; she always appreciated details, and Arthur took great pains to please her. But now--
The string quartet puts down their bows; the spinning dancers come to a halt. Arthur is the subject of every stare in the room, except Cobb's.
Cobb is staring at Mal.
"What?" Mal asks, all innocence. "He is the dreamer, yes?"
It's just a practice run, so Arthur decides to cut their losses now. He reaches for his gun and fires twice: Cobb first, the muzzle against his temple (the mist of blood and bone speared across Mal's face like a mask), and again, the hot barrel burning the roof of Arthur's mouth as he pulls the trigger.
He sits up sharply from his recliner; Cobb is plucking out his IV and lurching to his feet. "That's enough for today," Cobb says, not looking at Arthur.
Arthur ignores him. "What," he asks, "was Mal doing there?"
"It's my subconscious," Cobb shoots back, maneuvering around Arthur's recliner and almost stumbling in his haste. He wants to spin his totem, Arthur knows. His own fingers are in his pocket, groping for his die. "I don't have any control over it." He walks rapidly towards the front hall and the hardwood flooring there.
Arthur almost calls Cobb on his bullshit. But Mal's only been gone four months, and Cobb's been away from home for three, and maybe Cobb should be allowed to dream of her sometimes.
*
The side effect of Somnacin and the PASIV device is that eventually, it's the only way a regular dream-sharer can dream. Arthur remembers what sleep was like before - as much as any regular dreamer remembers any of his or her dreams, in snatches. He feels no nostalgia for the spontaneity of it, but sometimes he misses the feeling of discovery. Nonetheless, he can't go back, and Arthur prizes his control. To know a dream is to be responsible for it, so he keeps himself in check.
Dom liked pushing the limits: for him, rules were meant to be broken. A stable dream within a dream was considered impossible until he came along. Mal loved to create; the subconscious was her endless canvas. In her dreams, Arthur could gaze across the sea for miles, and still spot a wharf or fishing boat specking the waves.
The first time Cobb said 'don't' about a dream was a month before Mal killed herself: "Don't create from memories, Arthur," he said, watching Mal's totem spin and spin and wobble and topple. "It blurs the lines between dreams and reality too much."
"I never would have considered," Arthur told him, truthfully. It's not why he likes dreamwalking. If Arthur were left to himself in an art museum, he would be in the surrealism wing.
Arthur dreams up paradoxes. Cobb dreams up his late wife. One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not safe.
*
When Arthur hears Cobb's totem roll to a stop, he steps into the foyer and leans his shoulder against the eave. "I don't care what you do while you're alone on the PASIV," he says, striving for a gentle tone, "But you've got to watch yourself while we're working."
He does care, but it's one of those things they don't talk about. There's always been a lot they don't talk about, but.
Cobb is crouched on the ground, fingers threaded through his hair towards the back of his neck. "I," he starts. Stops. Changes what he's going to say. "I can't believe she called you out. Why would she do that?"
Arthur thinks of her rich accent as she pronounced him the dreamer, the warmth of her smile and the strange coolness of her eyes. But it's Cobb, so he says, "I thought it - she - sounded very natural." If she wasn't a subconscious creation it would have been harmless. "The sort of thing she would have said in life."
"Straight out of memory," Cobb murmurs to himself. He picks up his totem and straightens, turning to Arthur. "I'm sorry," he says, clasping Arthur on the shoulder and squeezing. His eyes are sorrowful. "It won't happen again."
"Good," Arthur says, quirking his lips upwards. Cobb's hand slips down his arm and falls, and Arthur waves back. "I'll clean up here."
Cobb hesitates, and Arthur knows: he wants to hook up to the PASIV device tonight. But he shakes his head quickly, dropping his chin, and offers a ghastly smile. "All right. Thanks." He goes for his coat.
"Sleep well, Cobb," Arthur says.
Cobb chuffs a breath. It might be a chuckle.
*
It doesn't happen again, for three and a half weeks. They complete the job successfully; the payoff aids with a backload of expenses, but there's not much left over, and certainly not enough to bribe Cobb's way back home. So Arthur puts out feelers and soon enough they're started in on the next job - not soon enough, not really. Arthur watches Cobb go haunted at the edges; their supply of Somnacin dwindles. Arthur demands a pay advance and gets one, for the architect they don't actually need. Dom designs the level and Arthur designs the traps, as usual, and Arthur's certain their mark doesn't have the training that would necessitate a second level.
They walk the level and add detail, Cobb rolling the dream out as they go and Arthur making mental notes for where he can add traps next go-around. His subconscious is sparsely populated as usual. The library stacks rise high around them; the books are titled in Latin and French. Arthur pulls a book at random from a shelf and opens it idly while Cobb goes around the corner.
You are waiting for a train, the first page says, and someone brushes against him, too hard for Arthur's own subconscious. He looks up sharply and sees a flash of curling brunette hair, a pale shoulder, and she's gone, around the corner after Cobb.
"Mal?" Arthur asks. He reshelves the book and follows the projection. The stacks are too close together; he'll have to tell Cobb to allow some breathing room. It takes him a moment to remember where he is in the maze of books and he turns left, then left again. "Cobb?" he calls, raising his voice, and turns right.
An outstretched palm presses into his chest and Arthur stops short; Mal is wearing a pale sundress, sharply at odds with the mahogany bookshelves and dim lighting. Dust motes (and that is how Arthur knows this isn't his dream, as much as the evenly distributed weight of the die in his pocket) catch what sun there is and turns her visage slightly blurred and angelic. "Stop, Arthur," she says, her chin raised impetuously.
She makes a very striking image and Arthur almost remembers her like this, arguing passionately for grants or with Dom over a theory, but her eyes are shadowed. Arthur thinks she should be beautiful, but instead, she is terrible.
"Stop what?" Arthur asks quietly. He thinks Dom's willpower is incredible. He's put a lot of work into Mal: physically she is perfect. And he must have a massive amount of energy invested in her existence if she's walking into Arthur's subconscious.
Mal seems to sense his uncertainty. She relaxes her stance and lowers her chin; her eyes, big and blue, are full of longing. "Stop following him! Dom," she clarifies. "Can't you see? You're only holding him back."
Arthur raises one eyebrow, then the other. She's not talking about the dream, obviously. For a moment, he is shaken. Is this what Cobb really thinks of me? he wonders. But the more important question follows close on its heels. "What am I holding him back from?" he asks.
Mal steps forward, her hand still resting on Arthur's breastbone; she looks pleadingly up at him, searching his face. "From me," she whispers. "Please, Arthur, if you care about him - if you care about me - don't hold him back any longer."
Arthur delicately puts his hand over Mal's: he can't help but be as gentle with her now as he was in life. He folds his fingers around her palm and lifts her hand from his chest. "Mal," he says, "You're dead. You're not real."
Mal's eyes widen with shock; a moment later she slaps him with her free hand, sharp nails cutting his cheek, and she wrenches her other hand from his grip. "That may be so but he is happy with me," she says viciously as Arthur clutches his jaw. "He is meant to be together with me--!"
"Mal!"
Arthur looks up in surprise to see Cobb storming forward, face twisted angrily, his gun out and pointed Arthur's way.
He wakes up a second later, but Cobb remains asleep. 1, 2. 3. Arthur removes the IV line; he massages his jaw as he rolls his die across the cement floor. 25, 26, 27. He checks the time left on the PASIV device. 48, 49, 50.
He counts to sixty-two before Cobb opens his eyes with a sigh.
"You'll have to start from scratch," Arthur says.
Cobb blinks at him, reaching for the IV in his arm. Arthur watches him hesitate, Cobb's hand hovering uncertainly over his wrist. "Why?" he asks after a moment.
Arthur just looks at him, but Cobb resolutely stares back. "She knows the whole layout," he accuses, "and you can't control her. That's a problem."
"It doesn't matter," Cobb sighs, pulling the IV out reluctantly. "She won't do anything."
"Won't she?" Arthur presses his lips thin when Cobb doesn't answer, wearily getting to his feet. "How much did you see?" Arthur asks. Cobb tries to walk past him, but Arthur grabs his elbow. "Cobb. How much did you see?"
Dom finally meets Arthur's eyes with an icy glare; he jerks his elbow from Arthur's grip. "Get off me." He turns to walk away, a hand in his coat pocket.
"It is a projection!" Arthur snarls after him, fury rising in throat. "You hear me, Dom!?"
Cobb slams the bathroom door shut with enough force to make the table rattle, and Arthur scrubs his hand over his face.
*
They do start from scratch in the end, and it's done too hastily. In a fit of cruelty Arthur refuses to let Cobb near their shared PASIV device, and he keeps the supply of Somnacin close. They do only one practice run before the hit, short but clean. The old rich library is replaced with a well-lit modern one, all fluorescent lighting and the smell of fresh carpeting. Arthur supposes it will suffice, although he's discomfited enough throughout the run that Dom's projections continuously stare at him no matter what he's doing. Their conversations are all business, short and clipped.
The evening they go to intercept the mark after her knee surgery, Cobb says en route, "I'm glad you're here, Arthur."
Arthur blinks at him, but he can't look too long since he's the one driving. "I'm a little shocked you'd say that, seeing as I haven't let you dream all week," he says, matter-of-fact.
"No, I ..." Cobb trails off and they're both silent for a little while. "God, I can't tell you how much I ... miss Mal."
Arthur doesn't say 'I know'. He waits.
"I've let this get out of control," Cobb admits, much to Arthur's surprise once again. "That was ... I won't--"
"Don't say you won't let it happen again," Arthur warns.
Cobb shakes his head. "Then I'll try not to," he promises instead.
It's an empty promise - as if Cobb wanted either of those surprise visits to happen! - but Arthur accepts the apology, because it's Cobb. "I know." He doesn't tell Cobb about the traps he added, because right now he's pretty sure that's also telling Mal.
It's not until much later that he realizes he's afraid of her. By that point it's justified.
*
Things are fine for four months: not entirely Mal-free - that's impossible, Arthur realizes, but she drifts on the edge of his vision, or limits herself to Dom. (Arthur avoids her when she approaches, excusing himself to wander alone until Cobb comes back, always late.) She only appears when Arthur and Cobb are alone in the dream, at least where Arthur can see her: when they introduce a forger for a job, a British fellow calling himself Eames, she disappears.
(It's the only thing Eames is good for, Arthur tells himself in a bemused way, although it's a lie. Eames is excellent at his job, terrifyingly so, so much so that Arthur shows him a picture of Mal and warns him never to create a face similar.
"Found the blonde a little too convincing, did you, darling?" Eames laughs, because he's easygoing and casual and everything Arthur isn't and never wishes to be.
"Merely warning you away from the depths of your twisted imagination," Arthur corrects him coolly.)
*
Around the anniversary of Dom and Mal's engagement things get worse again. Phillipa's birthday has come and gone, the first one Cobb has missed, and James' is in less than a month. Arthur visits for him, of course, not that the children remember him well, but as present-bearer he becomes their instant friend. Their grandmother looks on in cool resentment, her eyes on the back of Arthur's head while Phillipa demands that he open the box and free the pony figurine inside. It feels like Mal, and Arthur folds his loaded die into the space between his digits.
Mal stands on street corners, cleans a bar, preens in a nightclub, ghosts the hallways, her little secret smile curling her lips until she sees Arthur. She frowns at him now, somewhere between confused and irritated, and Arthur isn't entirely surprised to discover he misses her smile.
They bring on a new architect for the Stein job, mostly because they're doing two layers and Cobb wants Arthur with him on the bottom. Arthur doesn't want to do two layers: Mal is everywhere, but she's more likely there. Nonetheless, with four dreamers - the new architect, Arthur, Cobb, and the mark - Arthur decides the chances of her appearance are minimal. Cobb having successfully kept her in control, he has no reason to question his friend, except to point out, once: "We could put this off, you know - say we need a week or two for more research."
Cobb looks at Arthur. His face is pinched. "Why?" Arthur just looks at him; Cobb knows why. Cobb drops his eyes in acknowledgment. "No; we'll stick with the timetable."
"All right," Arthur sighs, and doesn't tell Cobb that getting home in time for James' birthday is a futile dream. Extraction is tricky, the tools are expensive, and the interception of the mark often requires greased palms: there won't be enough money in this job, no doubt, to take Cobb home.
Arthur finds out that Stein has had training to deal with extraction, so he and Cobb make plans accordingly. Militarized dreams are the most risky: their first go-ahead extraction with violent projections took three tries to get right, and after that Cobb demanded forgers for those cases. But Eames isn't available (or isn't making himself available) and with Cobb pushing the timetable there isn't time for someone else less experienced. So Cobb suggests something new.
"On the second level, we'll tell Stein he's dreaming," Cobb says.
Arthur stares at him. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," he says, but Cobb presses back.
"It's a gamble, okay, but if we can get him to think that it's someone else's dream he'll turn on his own subconscious. Help us break through, even." Cobb rolls his lips between his teeth when Arthur says nothing, and presses his hands together, elbows on his knees. "I know this is asking a lot of you." An understatement: Arthur will be dreaming the second level, so he'll be the first one torn apart by an angry mob. "But if it works ..."
"You just miss experimentation," Arthur accuses him; Cobb has the grace to drop his gaze. "It's just as risky as militarization. Maybe more so."
"It's about the same risk as forging," Cobb protests.
"Wrong. Stein's been trained for this, so if he remembers, we might not get a second shot," Arthur snaps. "And he'll know our faces!" He rethinks that last statement: "Your face, anyway. If you're going to do this, I'd better not be anywhere near you while you're with the mark." The subconscious is funny that way: it's better at finding the dreamer than the subject usually is.
He shouldn't have made that exception, because of course Cobb takes it as tacit permission. "Pack heat," he says with a wan smile.
"Always do," Arthur grumbles.
*
Two years later Eames and Ariadne will ask what happened on the Stein job that makes Arthur so adamantly against 'Mister Charles'. Arthur's not lying about his subconscious tearing them apart, or how Stein found out he was dreaming. He just employs the vagaries of English pronouns too well.
*
The top level of the dream, left with the architect - a forgettable, if passable, co-worker, whose landscaping reminds Arthur vaguely of the early 80's, earth tones everywhere - is designed with a fortress of a hotel room to keep Stein's subconscious out. On the next level down Arthur parts ways with Dom almost immediately and regrets choosing Venice for the setting, no matter Stein's mental vulnerability to his childhood home.
He wishes for a car to hide in, or someplace else where he could be out of sight. Instead, he stands in the middle of a bridge with his arms folded on the railing; his options for death are best here (drowning, shooting - both better than being torn to pieces). His loaded die is locked in a safe on the third floor of a nondescript home four blocks away: there is something unsettling about being the dreamer and feeling the weight of it sit right. (For Arthur, this is the line that blurs reality too much.)
Projections eye him suspiciously and Arthur represses the urge to reach for his gun. It's a shock when an arm presses up against his own.
"Hello, Arthur," Mal purrs. "I'm a little surprised to find you here instead of standing in Dom's shadow."
Arthur straightens, turns, and starts walking away.
"Arthur!" Mal calls. He doesn't look back. "Arthur!" More insistently now, and he hears her high heels clicking on the paved stone sidewalk as she gives chase.
Arthur has every intention of escaping Mal, picking up his pace accordingly, but it occurs to him belatedly that this is the best situation he could have hoped for. Mal shouldn't be here, but at least she's here, not picking at her husband while Dom attempts to execute the most tricky extraction plan he's ever attempted. This is Arthur's job: to keep the way paved for Dom. He slows his steps, lets her follow, and leads her into the Penrose Steps trap three blocks down and one block east.
Mal stops halfway up the stairwell. "Oh, very nice," she says, while Arthur lingers near the top, waiting on her. "Very tricky. You didn't tell Dom about this part, did you?"
She's wearing a blue blouse and a white skirt this time, a combination Arthur recognizes from a time now almost a year past, but there is very little of Mal in her, Arthur feels. He leans against the railing. "No," he agrees; he didn't tell Cobb about this little park with its paradox stairway.
"So what do you think of my husband's gambit?" Mal asks breezily, approaching Arthur at a sedate pace. Unless he triggers the trap he can keep on walking, so Arthur ascends again and Mal follows; now she's on the top and he's near the bottom.
"It's pretty stupid," Arthur admits to her, and wonders if she'll repeat it to Dom later, like a half-remembered conversation Dom never actually had.
Mal laughs. "You never did like it much when we broke the rules." She turns and descends, too smart to topple from the final step. "And yet, with the paradoxes: always your favorite, yes?"
"Why are you here, Mal?" Arthur asks.
"There is one problem with the Penrose Steps," Mal replies instead, running the fingers of one hand over the railing. "To truly appreciate its simple elegance, the whole thing must be seen." She smiles down at Arthur. "And I brought a gun."
Arthur isn't too startled to draw his own weapon when Mal draws hers (Cobb's gun, actually, down to the silver-ringed barrel), but it's Mal. His shot goes wide; hers takes off the top half of his right ear. It's blindingly painful and nowhere near life-threatening: a brilliant shot, honestly, Arthur will reflect later.
Right now he screams and drops to one knee, clutching what's left of his ear. His gun bounces away. He barely hears Mal's heels clattering down the steps, but when her hands fist in his suit jacket he lurches upwards. She pushes him back, pressing his upper body into the wall and pinning him there. Arthur sucks his breath in through his teeth and lets it shudder out against his tongue, trying to focus his vision on Mal; she seems transfixed by his bleeding ear. She tries to pry his hands off the wound to see it better.
"He's here!" Mal calls first, loudly, although Arthur doesn't know who she's shouting to before she lowers her voice. "Poor Arthur," she breathes, her voice sounding as if it's far away. "Always chasing after Dom. If you would only let him go, you wouldn't need to hurt so much."
"You shot me!" Arthur grinds out. He tries for something more eloquent that might better elucidate his confusion, but Mal digs her nails into one of his wrists as she peels his hand away from his ear; her other hand clutches at the stump. Arthur's vision blurs from the pain and he kicks out blindly, hits her leg; she trips and falls with a startled shout. Arthur staggers to his feet and stumbles out of the Steps, right into the roar of a snarling crowd and a dozen waiting arms.
The Mr. Charles gambit has fallen through.
They break his wrists and fingers and ankles and ribs, dislocate his jaw, knock out six teeth, and wrench his left leg out of its hip socket before someone finally manages to cave in his skull, and Arthur wakes back up on the first level of the dream to a startled architect. "It's too early! Your dream will crumble--!"
"Check the mark," Arthur orders, curling his fingers over his whole right ear. "Keep him under for as long as you can."
"Done," the architect promises, darting to the other bed where Stein is beginning to shift in his sleep.
Arthur's die is evenly weighted in his pocket. He straightens his suit, rounds the bed, and approaches the back of Cobb's chair where he's still slumped with his eyes closed.
He shoves Cobb out of the overstuffed chair so hard he nearly bounces off the carpet. Arthur doesn't feel guilty for the vindictive pleasure this gives him until months later, and even then, he thinks it's justified.
*
Arthur and Cobb exchange eight words between kicking out of the dream and scattering. "Didn't work." "I noticed." "We'll get another shot." Then the mark is waking up and they run.
Arthur rolls his die across the sink of his hotel bathroom and sits on the toilet cover, resting his chin on his fingers. He's no student of psychology; Arthur knows just enough of the subject to understand how dream physics can change, how projections work. Mal is beyond his experience.
He fiddles with his phone and finally sends Cobb three text messages. Your wife shot me in the dream today. Then, Don't let it happen again, and finally, before Cobb can reply: I don't want to hear it.
*
Stein might have training, but he's no regular dream-sharer; even after bumping shoulders with Cobb in the street and down the hallway in the real world several times, he gives no sign of recognition. Arthur gives the go-ahead for a second try. This time, they're successful.
Arthur and Cobb don't talk about Mal. They don't talk about much of anything, except work.
*
Arthur hooks himself up to the PASIV device a few nights later. He's not in the habit of doing so. Creation doesn't bore him, but he has little interest in the act except for impossible physics. He finds dreaming to be difficult recreation.
That night, however, he opens his eyes in the old office and Mal is laughing with one of Arthur's projections, laughing at some joke Arthur didn't hear. She tucks her hair back behind one ear, the other hand wrapped around a coffee mug. When she looks up she beams at Arthur. "You're back!"
There is nothing cold in her eyes: she is as Arthur remembers her, smiles and laughter and fluttering hands. She kisses him on the cheek and Arthur stares at her, flummoxed. "Did you bring Dom? Oh, I miss Dom." She smells like her coffee: vanilla and walnut.
Arthur bends down to kiss her cheek in return. "I miss him, too," he admits, softly, in her ear. "But I can't be here."
Mal's expression crumples, her eyes impossibly large and sad. Arthur can't bear it. He turns and walks out the door into the sun, and walks the straight, paved pathway he creates until the timer on the PASIV device wakes him up.
*
Cobb's subconscious is no longer a safe place for Arthur to wander. Three practice runs are interrupted in the space of an hour: Mal with a knife, Mal with a gun, Mal and her bare hands trying to break his neck (the movies make it look so simple, but the strength it takes is incredible and not something Mal ever had - not in Arthur's dreams, anyway) until Cobb shoots him as a mercy.
They wake up within seconds of each other and Arthur rips out his line, surging to his feet. "What is your problem with me?" he demands.
Cobb's mouth works. "Mal--"
"Your problem. With me," Arthur reiterates.
"I don't have a problem with you," Cobb snaps, picking out his own line with such care as to make it obvious he's avoiding looking up. "I'm sorry," he apologizes for the third time that day.
Arthur runs his hand through his hair; it's getting too long. He's wanted to try slicking it back since he left the military but thought the look, along with the suits, might be too 50's mafia movie for his line of work. Not so much any more. "I know you are, but this is ..." he trails off, trying to find the right words. It's more difficult than he expected.
"I won't blame you if you've had enough," Cobb says to his wrist, almost too soft to be heard.
Arthur stares at the back of Cobb's neck, teeth clenched behind his lips. Is this what Cobb wants? he wonders. Is this what he actually wants?
He crouches and leans forward, elbows on his knees, and Cobb eventually responds by meeting his eyes.
"Pull yourself together," Arthur says, his voice pitched low. "And I'll see you tomorrow morning at the usual time."
Cobb looks at him: he can't say I can't control her because he can't make that admission aloud.
"We will figure something out," Arthur tells Cobb. "Tomorrow. Nine o'clock. Don't be hung over; we're meeting with the chemist."
Cobb smiles a little. Arthur's mouth quirks upwards in response, and he stands to pack up.
*
The conversation Arthur never knows happened:
"The team needs someone who understands what you're struggling with. And it doesn't have to be me, but then you have to show Arthur what I just saw," Ariadne pleads.
And Cobb's mouth works, a second of hesitation, before he demands another seat on the plane from Saito.
*
This is the last dream Cobb ever constructs for a job.
This is also the second time Arthur screws up his research.
The labyrinth is a restaurant. Private booths line the hallways. The whole thing, could it be viewed from the outside, is a double Mobius strip, which Arthur appreciates in its simple complexity. The only access from the first strip to the second is two rigged spiral stairwells - Arthur's work - leading to the penthouse 'above'. Cobb adds post-Renaissance paintings and deceptively delicate-looking candelabras to the walls; Arthur memorizes them as they go, for recreation during the job. The lighting is appropriately low, creating an illusion of sameness and privacy, which should lend Eames the quiet space he needs to keep the mark occupied. (Arthur has never envied Eames his job.)
Arthur finds Eames grating to work with, but a better psychoanalytic he couldn't ask for. He understands people as individuals, and he doesn't need a tour around Schneider's mistress' mind to know how she ticks. He meticulously researches her and when Eames puts on her face for their final practice run (tall, narrow, brunette, sleek and professional, hips canted and arms folded) Arthur claps his approval slowly.
"No need for sarcasm," Eames purrs, curling the mistress' lips into a smirk. "I know how good I am."
Cobb nods, walking around Eames as he strikes a pose, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Looks good. That wraps it up."
*
The mark populates the labyrinth much more heavily than Arthur, filling the booths with business parties and laughter. He sits with Cobb at the bar nursing a scotch on the rocks.
"Hey, baby," coos a projection with fake-blond hair and too much makeup, touching Arthur's arm. "You look like you've had a long day."
Arthur looks no such thing (hair slicked back, a dark suit to blend in), and he draws his elbow inwards. Cobb looks down at his drink and smiles; Arthur frowns. "Try him." He motions with his chin towards another projection, and the girl pouts but obeys.
He's accosted twice more, which is enough to make him twitchy, before Schneider finally saunters by with Eames on his arm. Eames laughs with an alto voice, covering his mouth with a slim hand, but although Schneider smiles he doesn't look at her, eyes roving over the bar. Arthur studiously does not look. He doesn't believe in feeling stares, but he imagines Schneider's gaze lingers on him, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. Does Schneider know he's dreaming? Why is Arthur (the dreamer) being singled out? But none of the projections stare needlessly, and conversation carries on as before, so Arthur says nothing.
Cobb twists to look over his shoulder as the mark passes by, and Arthur watches out of the corner of his eye as he nods. "They've sat." He puts down his drink and stands, shrugging back into his jacket to go to the penthouse and the safe inside.
Arthur stays where he is, but he twists in his seat to look out across the sea of tables, careful to never let his gaze linger too long on one place although all his attention is on the booth where Eames is fingering a glass of wine and Schneider is leaning back in his seat, neck fat bunched between his undone collar and his chin.
When a hand falls lightly on his shoulder Arthur almost doesn't turn to look. He opens his mouth to verbally turn down the projection, until it leans close and whispers, "Arthur."
Arthur turns his head with wide eyes. "Mal."
She smiles beautifully; her hand lingers on his shoulder, than smooths down his sleeve with the lightest of grips. "I have a surprise for you," she murmurs in his ear, her hair brushing his cheek.
Arthur nearly jumps when her hand reaches inside his jacket, his heartrate climbing rapidly. He slaps his hand down over hers, a fraction of a second too slow, and Mal dangles his gun from a fingertip. She laughs when he makes a grab for it, swearing - "Damn it, Mal-!" - and he has to bite his tongue and hang back to avoid making a scene that the projections will notice.
Mal's smile is nothing like gentle or kind. She slips Arthur's gun into her evening purse and crooks her finger at him. "Unless you want me to wander alone?" she asks, with an eyebrow raised.
Arthur curses under his breath and stands, buttoning his jacket. Mal holds out an expectant arm, and Arthur tightens his lips before taking her elbow. He tries to guide her towards the stairwell, but she has none of it, gripping his wrist and leading him unerringly towards the booth where Eames is flirting with Schneider.
"What are you doing?" Arthur hisses, covering her hand with his own, but he's limited in his movements as the dreamer and surrounded by so much of Schneider's subconscious.
Mal doesn't look at him. "Helping you," she murmurs, and drags him to a halt in front of the mark's booth.
Eames and Schneider both look up; Eames breaks character for the barest of moments, giving Arthur a questioning frown before it sharpens into something the mistress might have worn. "Pardon me?" he says, tightening his grip on Schneider's arm.
"Mr. Schneider," Mal says, disentangling her arm from Arthur's and resting her hand over her purse. "I found this lovely young man looking so lonely at the bar. May I introduce you?"
Arthur wants to run. He wants his gun back. Schneider looks intrigued and Eames reaches for Schneider's face, turning his head back. "I'm sorry, but we're ... busy," he breathes, pressing his forehead to Schneider's, and Arthur turns his face away when Eames kisses Schneider.
Mal develops a telling frown. Arthur wraps an arm around her shoulders, intent to turn her away and back down the hall to the spiral staircase that goes up forever, but a hand falls on the small of his back first. It's the fake blond from before, and she latches onto his free arm, runs a finger down his cheek. Arthur is startled to see her again, and completely distracted for a moment too long.
"Excuse me," Schneider says, standing up from the booth to Eames' whining protests; he's overweight and an inch taller than Arthur, and he brushes aside the projection. Arthur stiffens when he puts a beefy hand on his back, not far above where the blond placed hers. "Young man, take a walk with me." He pushes insistently and Arthur slides forward a step before he finds his balance, and he sees Mal stand aside with a patient, satisfied smile. He glances back at Eames, who watches helplessly as Arthur is led away. Watch her! he mouths over his shoulder, jerking his chin at Mal, and Eames frowns, but Arthur doesn't have a chance to see if he understood. "Tell me, what's your name?" Schneider asks, studying Arthur's face with a shocking intensity.
"John," Arthur says when nothing more intelligent or less generic immediately springs to mind, gathering himself behind stiff shoulders. He's not good at people like Eames is, but he's not blind by any means; he tries to think of any clues that might have shown Schneider actually prefers men.
"John, you're dressed too sharp to be drinking alone," Schneider says. "No friends, no co-workers to join you?"
They walk past booth after booth; he's going for the stairwell. The way Mal introduced Arthur undoubtedly gave Schneider unhealthy impressions. Arthur takes a risk and blocks off the nearest one; the conversation in the restaurant stops, and Arthur is suddenly the subject of every stare in the immediate area. Schneider notices nothing, standing too close to Arthur as he guides the point man along the aisle.
"I'm not very sociable," Arthur tells him, but he can't force himself to pretend to be receptive.
Schneider is starting to frown; he's looking for the stairs to the penthouse after all. His hand slips uncomfortably low on Arthur's back and Arthur clicks his teeth together when Schneider's pinky presses against the cleft of his rear end. "Excuse me a moment, John," he says, snapping his fingers at a passing waitress to gain her attention. She turns and quirks a brow at him and Schneider whispers in her ear, gesturing vaguely towards Arthur. The waitress nods, points. Arthur counts seconds on his breaths, wondering what's taking Cobb so long. He doesn't notice the sweat prickling his temples.
Schneider pushes Arthur forward again and the waitress winks at Arthur, making an 'OK' sign with her fingers. Arthur blinks - was that Eames? - and then they turn the corner and are at the restrooms.
"You first," Schneider says, motioning. "I'll follow shortly." Does he think he's being subtle? Not that Arthur cares: the men's restroom is a trap. He nods curtly and goes through the swinging door.
As soon as it's shut all the way, he turns on the faucet in the second sink. He gropes under the basin for the gun hidden there, but his fingers hit nothing. Arthur crouches and looks: it's gone.
Mal, he thinks. But now is his best time to lead the mark on a chase instead of enduring his hand, so he leaves the faucet on and steps back out of the men's bathroom, now on the other side of the maze and in the kitchen, and right into his own gun cocked at his chest.
Mal's lips are delicately parted in a pout, her eyes regretful. "I'm sorry, Arthur," she says, her tone worryingly close to Cobb's repeated apologies for her very existence. The harsh florescent lighting of the kitchen creates a cloudy halo in her hair.
She shoots him in the foot.
Arthur claps his hands over his mouth to suppress the scream and his back hits the wall; he slides down it, teeth grit and breathing hard through his nose. Mal sinks down in front of him, and he tries to focus on her face. She cups his cheek and leans forward, pressing her forehead to his. "Why do you not listen?" she asks, sorrowful.
Arthur gets his breathing under control, tries to concentrate; the utensils on the counters clatter with his efforts, though the projections notice nothing. Mal runs fingers through his hair and presses the hot barrel of the gun against Arthur's neck. "Dear Arthur." A knife vibrates off the tables and skitters across the floor, too close for comfort.
"Just kill me," Arthur dares her with gritted teeth, but Mal shakes her head.
"I have to make you understand," she says. "Dom, he's so torn. He wishes for me, always. He wishes for his children: I can give him that. What I cannot give him is you."
Arthur inches one hand along the floor, groping for the knife that fell nearby. She's only a projection, he reminds himself - reminds himself that he's killed her before, when she was alive, giving her the kick needed to claw back to reality, but he hesitates too long.
She shoves the gun into his shoulder and fires again. Arthur's vision goes dark at the edges and he screams; Mal claps her hand against his mouth to muffle him again. Arthur shoves hard at her chest and she falls back; he presses his hand to his shoulder and curls in on it, twisting to fall on his side. He pushes up on his elbow with gritted teeth and struggles to get his knees under himself, but he hears Mal let out an enraged snarl over the roaring of his ears and she falls on his back.
The fallen knife slits his suit's shoulder seam open, missing his skin by a breath, and slides home between the fine bones of his hand splayed on the floor. It's so sharp Arthur barely feels it.
He bucks and Mal rolls off his back with a soft grunt, and Arthur grabs the knife's handle with his good hand, blinking hard to see. The ground is shaking violently now and he has to take a moment to steady the dream, trying to think through the haze of pain. He pulls upwards, but the knife is stuck fast, the angle wrong for him to leverage his strength against Mal's rage-filled attack. Arthur breathes deep and harsh and closes his eyes, gathering himself, tense for Mal's next blow.
It doesn't come; she's crawled around to face him, and she slides the fingers of both hands into his hair. She takes a tight grip and forces his head up, features too close for him to properly focus on. "I will never let you keep Dom," she whispers. "He is unhappy here. I will bring him back home." She lets out a shaky breath as if she's trying to not cry. "I miss him."
Arthur lets out a weak laugh at that, and Mal bares her teeth. "You're not real," he breathes out.
"Yet you cannot attack me," Mal croons, lips twitching. There's a lot of truth to that. Arthur concentrates on breathing and keeping the dream steady (he wishes the kick would come soon), and Mal shakes his head a little as if to recapture his attention. "Let Dom go. For me, Arthur," she begs, and her grip loosens to smooth down the sides of his face.
Arthur reaches up with his free hand, spikes of ice shooting down his impaled arm and wounded shoulder as he puts his weight on them, and he touches her cheek.
"I'm not leaving," he tells her, breathless with pain. "So stop trying to chase me away."
"Arthur," Mal says insistently, as if he's broken her heart, and the bathroom door slams open.
Cobb's eyes are wide and haunted when he shoots Arthur through the skull.
*
Arthur wakes up to Eames' face - hardly the most comforting thing to see upon opening his eyes. He's got Arthur by the shoulder. "I was just about to shove you out of your chair," he says, letting go. "Hobbes is sedating the mark."
Arthur nods; he's reluctant to move his shoulder, which is throbbing still with phantom pain. "Was the extraction successful?"
Eames laughs roughly. "You goddamn wanker," he swears, straightening up as Cobb's eyes flutter open. "I thought the dream was going to fly apart right under my feet and you're asking about the extraction?"
Arthur presses his lips thin, but Cobb stands immediately, pinching the IV out of his wrist. Arthur belatedly removes his own line; Hobbes straightens up from where he's bent over Schneider, who's fast asleep on his bed. (Arthur pointedly looks at the mark, forcing down his discomfort.) "Success," Cobb says with a flat voice, and Arthur relaxes a little in his chair. Hobbes, the chemist, nods as if that's what he expected all along.
Eames looks back and forth between Arthur and Cobb. "Well, then, that's cause for celebration, considering--"
"Schneider should be under for another ten minutes or so," Hobbes interrupts, pulling the PASIV line from Schneider's wrist. "We need to get going."
Cobb is already handing Hobbes a roll of hundreds. "Great work." His tone says otherwise. "Let's get out of here." He nods to Eames and bends over the PASIV device, rolling the cords in; they can be cleaned later, at a more opportune time. Hobbes bolts; as the one paid under the table he has the least stake in correctly completed work.
Arthur jumps in surprise when Eames grasps Arthur's bicep and elbow - he's perturbed when Eames helps him to his feet and Arthur leans against him. He pulls away immediately, straightening his vest. "I'll be in contact with the payout," he tells Eames.
"Uh-huh," says the forger with a doubtful tone, and Arthur's forehead wrinkles into a frown. "Look, I just want to know what happened back there. First Schneider takes off with you - and don't get me wrong, love, you're beautiful, but that was an unexpected surprise - and then the dream's shaking apart. Was he that good?" Eames smiles to let Arthur know it's a joke.
Arthur punches him as hard as he can.
Eames swears, staggering back and clutching his nose (it's not broken - Arthur knows how that feels under his knuckles), and then Cobb is there between them. "Son of a bitch, Arthur," he says - the exasperation is the most emotion he's had in his voice yet. "Get out of here, Eames!"
Eames flicks Arthur off but obeys - he might be a flippant bastard but none of them want to get caught by the mark.
"Let's go," Cobb says, pressing a hand to Arthur's back. Arthur jerks away, an impulse reflex after Schneider, and Cobb gives him a wide-eyed betrayed look. Arthur can't manage to look apologetic. He shrugs into his suit jacket, grabs the PASIV device, and leads the way out the door, suitcase bumping against his knee.
*
After an extraction is completed, Cobb is usually the one who deals with wrapping the business up. Arthur makes a point of never asking after the information that's been extracted: he has no interest in being privy to corporate espionage. It's better if he's never the potential target of blackmail; he doesn't want to watch his own back while watching Cobb's. When Cobb is done with the followup phone calls, he'll undoubtedly call his children. It will be a couple of hours until he's done.
Arthur takes a long bath in his hotel room. His die lies on the ceramic tiles beside the tub, correct face up. He puts his feet up on the edge and rests his head back, closing his eyes. The hot water soaks away the twinges in his shoulder and hand, and his hair falls limp around his cheekbones. The next time they get a truly lucrative job he's getting a hotel room with a jacuzzi.
When his phone rings he snaps his eyes open; he has to make an undignified scramble to get to his cell on the sink, wiping his hand on the towel neatly folded on the toilet seat first. He half-expects it to be Eames, but the caller ID says 'Dom'. (Mal's number is in his phone too. Arthur doesn't generally consider himself sentimental, but he just keeps forgetting to take the time to clean his address book up.)
It's much earlier than Arthur expected, which is never a good sign. He picks up. "The client's unsatisfied," he says, not quite making it a question.
Cobb pauses, and Arthur thinks he was too late to pick up until a static-y breath hits his ear. "No; they're fine. But we need to talk. Come down to my room in an hour?" he asks.
Arthur presses his damp hair back with his free hand. It's either about how Arthur screwed up (he should have dug deeper, asked for more time, been more thorough with Schneider's late-night appointments) or it's about Mal. Arthur can take the chastisement, but: "If it's about Mal, I don't--" he starts.
Cobb cuts him off. "We need to talk," he repeats, insistent. "About Mal, and everything else. Just ... come down, Arthur."
Arthur closes his eyes. He's still half out of the tub, elbows braced on the toilet. "All right."
"Thanks," Cobb says, and hangs up.
Arthur drops his phone on the towel and falls back into the bathtub, sloshing water over the edge. He might need something for a headache.
*
Arthur lets the television run the news while he slicks his hair back into place and gets dressed. He considers ordering room service but decides he neither has the time nor the inclination to eat. He settles on the bed and lets stock options and sports reels wash over him.
Eames does call. Arthur ignores the call twice but, annoyed by the forger's insistence, picks up on the third. "Mr. Eames," he says coolly. "I believe I said I would contact you."
"That's me, always impatient," Eames replies. "Don't fret, darling, this isn't about the money."
"Then is this an apology for your intentional insult to my integrity?" Arthur flexes the fingers of his right hand, remembering the feel of Eames' nose against them.
"Nice alliteration, but also no. You should consider growing a sense of humor."
"I humor you all the time," Arthur says dryly.
"And as ever I appreciate your endless consideration," Eames replies with equal sarcasm. "Now, shall we talk about Cobb?"
Arthur shifts to sit up a little higher on the headboard. "What about Cobb?"
"That projection of his dead wife, specifically," Eames replies. "Just how much of a problem is she? I want to know strictly for job security reasons, of course."
Arthur is grateful Eames isn't in the room because his mouth works, flabbergasted, before he formulates an answer. "Nothing you should concern yourself with," he says, too slow.
"Mm, yes, sabotage is nothing to be concerned by." Arthur can see him nodding, gleaning more information from Arthur's statement than Arthur intended or even realized he interjected.
"If you have a problem with how we work, talk to Cobb." Arthur's voice is hot. "Or end our business relationship."
"I'm hardly going to get a straight answer out of him, am I," Eames almost laughs. "And you always have the best offers. I can take a certain amount of risk."
Arthur knows for a fact that Eames is a heavy gambler. He rolls his die around his palm, regretting that Eames is the best in the business of forgery. "Mrs. Cobb is hardly any threat to you, Mr. Eames," he says. "But her presence isn't uncommon."
"Mm-hmm," Eames murmurs. "... Look, Arthur. Take care of yourself."
Arthur puts down his die and mutes the television. "Pardon me, Mr. Eames?"
"I don't think Cobb ever really took to the whole illegal extraction thing. I've never seen someone with a guilt complex so bad it's taken on a life of its own, literally," Eames continues. "Knowing how bad you are with people, I'll tell you this: there's a lot of longing going on, of course, but as long as Cobb's hung up on the guilt - that she died, I'm guessing, maybe for the illegal whatnot, maybe for not dying with her - she's not going anywhere. And that's dangerous to everyone on his jobs."
Arthur is impressed by Eames' insight, but the conversation is making him deeply uncomfortable. "I'll take that under advisement," he says at length.
"Yah," Eames says. His tone rises with amusement. "Call me, love."
"Goodnight, Mr. Eames," Arthur says, and hangs up.
*
Arthur knocks on Cobb's hotel room door. Cobb opens the door almost immediately; Arthur can picture him on the ceramic bathroom floor, spinning his totem over and over again. His hair is disheveled and his button-down shirt is wrinkled. He steps aside to admit Arthur. "Come on in," he says, and follows Arthur back into the single, gesturing at a chair while he sits on the corner of his bed.
Arthur sits, pushing himself as far back into the overstuffed hotel chair as he can. His knees hit the edge of the seat. Cobb leans forward with his elbows on his knees and presses his flat palms together, dropping his head to look at his fingers. Cobb sighs deeply.
Arthur opens his mouth to ask what this is all about when Cobb doesn't speak for a while, but Dom finally says, "I want you to start looking for reliable architects."
Arthur raises his eyebrows, pulling his chin in a little. "All right."
"I'll keep an eye out as well," Cobb continues, still looking at his hands. "We need someone who is creative and quick. Drafters, the like. And you'll have to like them, because you'll be working closely with them." Cobb finally looks up. There is something hard behind his eyes, his jaw set. "I know you've taken to hiding traps from me, Arthur."
Arthur presses his lips thin. "Yes. I deemed it a little safer," he admits.
"I agree. From now on, I don't want to know anything about the layout." Cobb slashes his palms through the air. "Nothing. I'll just have to be smart enough to avoid your traps," Cobb says, smiling slightly without humor.
Arthur doesn't return the smile. "So you won't be building any more."
"I - no. Not anymore," Cobb agrees, letting his gaze drift towards the window. He stares for a long moment, then snaps his head back towards Arthur. "Mal knows what I know, after all." Cobb's throat is constricted, and his face reflects the sorrow in Mal's eyes when she shot Arthur in the shoulder. "I can't - I want -" he stammers, and he sits up and takes a deep sobering breath, scrubbing his hand over his face. "Arthur, I'm sorry. I never expected that she would ..." He looks away, bracing his head against his pointer fingers and thumbs. "I don't know why she's singling you out."
Arthur slides forward on his seat; there's not much space between Cobb and him when he sits like this, and it's almost uncomfortably close. "What is Mal?" he asks, his voice low.
Cobb glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "My wife. She's my wife." His voice goes hard and broken.
"Mal is dead," Arthur says, keeping his voice low. "Mal is a projection."
i couldn't hang onto her cobb breathes at her grave arthur at his side i couldn't hang onto her i couldn't bring her back to reality
"Don't you think I know that," Cobb grates out, scowling at the hotel window.
There's a lot Arthur and Dom don't talk about. There's always been a lot they don't talk about, but. "Dom," Arthur says, and Cobb looks sharply at Arthur. Arthur never calls Cobb 'Dom'. "I'm not leaving."
*
One day two years ago, Arthur was at work. He was expecting a phone call from his boss later in the evening, possibly a fax of a sketch illustrating a dream within a dream within a dream - a theory to present at the next conference.
When his boss called it was a stranger, a man weary with age and knowledge. Arthur got used to his new boss in his old skin, but his wife killed herself before Arthur could get to know her again. Her shade haunts them both, a familiar corpse sewn up with string.
*
Cobb takes half a breath and his mouth falls open a little. Arthur leans forward. "I'm not leaving," he repeats. "So you can stop trying to chase me away."
"I never," Dom starts, and stops, and then lets out a sharp little disbelieving laugh. "Thank you," he says to his knees, and swipes the edge of his fingers against the underside of his nose. He sniffs, gives his head a little shake, and looks up with suspiciously red eyes. "Thank you."
*
That's not the end of Mal's shade; she still appears in dreams and sabotages their extractions, but her success is limited now that Cobb no longer knows the layouts. Mal still shoots Arthur out of Cobb's subconscious. They go through architects like water. Eames comes and goes, easygoing and thoughtful and annoying as ever.
"You watching your back, Arthur?" he asks when Arthur takes him through a labyrinth without Cobb present, pointing out the traps and decor and the elevator that goes up when you press 'down'.
"I watch Cobb's back," Arthur answers, not looking at him, and he presses the down arrow. "As you surely know by now, Mr. Eames, that's my job."
fin