"You're not involved in civil engineering, are you," the young man said, seated across the table from a man who appeared in his late twenties, but with a spark in his eye that resonated of something younger.

The older of the two of them glanced down at his plate before looking back up at the student before him. "No, I'm not."

Straightening his jacket out slightly by readjusting his seat, the younger couldn't help but let his brow furrow in concern. "You got my name from my professor, but why would he give it to you if you weren't in urban work?"

Ignoring the observation of the younger, his lips twitched slightly in something like a smile, but they quickly returned to their original line. "Arthur Miller. Your parents ever read The Crucible?"

Rolling his eyes at the fact that he was avoiding his probes, Arthur nodded. "Thought it would get me attention as an adult. More trouble than it's worth."

"Yeah," mused the other, unfazed by Arthur's annoyance. "Attention..." He took his glass of water, sipping from it. "I have taken an interest in you. Your professor said you were the top in your class."

Sighing heavily, Arthur just wanted to get to the bottom of this. "But you just admitted you're not involved in civil engineering. I'm really not interested in anything environmental, I'd like to stick to-"

"Civil engineering," broke in the older gentleman, and with a pursing of his lips Arthur shut his mouth, "involves mapping out and planning cities. The electricity, the sewage, the transportation, the structures of the buildings..." Arthur didn't expect the almost searching gaze directing into his eyes that the other man directed at him. "What got you interested in creating worlds?"

"I-..." This caught Arthur off guard. "I don't think civil engineering leads to a God complex, if that's what you're saying..."

With a shake of his head, the other agreed. "No," he muttered, looking like he was distracted by something behind Arthur before directing his attention back to him. "You attend the premier institute for engineering in the country. Your father and your mother, however, were both involved in the arts. Your mother still teaches high school theatre."

This was no longer a case of curiosity for Arthur. A more primal, fight-or-flight instict was taking over. Why did he know so much about him? His professor didn't know about his parents.

Continuing on, ignoring Arthur's escalating discomfort, the older man swirled the water in his glass. "The two realms aren't quite exclusive. Creation, you know this."

"Who are you," Arthur finally broke in.

Finally pausing, the older man seemed to take note of Arthur's fingers inching toward the knife next to his plate. "Relax," he said seriously, taking away several layers of what Arthur had been perceiving as teasing. "I only researched your background to make sure you were trustworthy. I've heard of twenty-one year olds at MIT with twisted backstories."

This didn't help Arthur relax in the slightest. "You think I'm some sort of psycho?"

"No, no," the man mused. Arthur was starting to get pissed off. "I just want to talk to you. I don't have anyone held hostage or anything, I'm completely harmless." There was just the slightest glint in his eye, and Arthur knew for a fact this man could not be harmless. "I want to talk to you about dreams."

This statement was out-of-the-blue enough to cause Arthur's hand to finally relax, dropping to rest on his lap. "Dreams?"

"Do you ever remember your dreams when you wake up?"

Confused and still suspicious, Arthur shook his head.

With a sigh, the man kept his eyes carefully trained on Arthur. "If I'm going to discuss this with you anymore, you're going to have to stop acting like I'm about to kidnap you."

"Why should I be at ease right now," Arthur said bluntly. "I don't know how know me or how you found me, and I don't know what your purpose is. Forgive me for being suspicious."

Without missing a beat, the other man responded, calmly. "I have a potential job offer for you. It is not necessarily in the field of engineering, but I think that your skills could aid your performance in it. You've also revealed yourself to be an intensely guarded young man, wary to trust. That's good."

Arthur pressed his napkin into his lap, flattening out the creases. "What kind of job?"

"Tell me more about what you think of dreams."

Running a hand through his grown-out, frizzy hair (college kids had phases like that), Arthur sighed. "I don't think too much about them. They're usually our subconscious trying to communicate with our conscious mind."

"True," the man admitted, even though it was evidenced by the slight pause before he spoke that Arthur had not given him the information he had been looking for. "What do you know about dream manipulation?"

He was positive from the glint in the man's eyes that he expected Arthur's jaw to drop. Instead, Arthur responded without so much as a flinch. "It was developed for use in the military. But it's been all but criminalized for use in the private sector..."

Arthur might have felt better about the look of surprise that graced the other man's features, but he wasn't interested in impressing him. "Very few things in circulation in this country that are profitable are completely legal."

At that, Arthur took his napkin out of his lap, setting it on the table. It was a sign that he was ready to walk. "I'm not interested in financial gain when I could get locked up for it. I don't deal that way." He moved to stand from the chair.

The man simply shook his head. "I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about creation, remember?"

For the first time during their conversation, this man had finally given Arthur a reason to not bolt out on him. Cautiously, he settled back into the chair.

With another twitch of his lips, he continued. "By taking control of the creation of dreams, worlds open up to your fingertips. We can use that for countless means. But beyond that is the ability to create things that never existed before, things that couldn't exist in the real world."

"Keep talking."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The world was crumbling around him, the sun was literally burning the buildings around him until they were molten metal, and he stared straight up as a metal beam fell from nowhere straight towards his-

With a jolt, he shot up in the armchair, panting. Damn it.

"Calm down, remember, it's not real," said a voice beside him

"If it's not real, why can't I..." Angry at himself, Arthur ripped out the lead, flinching at the pain, grabbing a cotton ball from the bedside table and pressing it to his wrist. He couldn't finish his sentence.

The Cobb's living room was open and spacious, mostly due to the view out of the almost full wall of windows to a well kept lawn. But nothing about it was calming to Arthur right now. Why had he agreed to this...

"Arthur," said the hushed voice beside him, and he looked up at the woman beside him, resting against the armrest. He ignored the pang in his stomach at her distress. "Don't take it so roughly. It takes time to-"

"I'm tired of hearing that it takes time!" Arthur stood up seamlessly, striding past her to the man sitting in the armchair, silent until now. "What am I doing wrong?"

"You need to stay calm," Mr. Cobb said bluntly. "Every time you panic like this and draw attention to yourself, the dreams collapse." He was disconnecting himself from the PASIV and already putting it away.

Arthur stammered. "St-stop putting that away, I'm not done yet."

"I think you are," said Mr. Cobb with a finality in his voice.

This was unfair. "You're the one who said I had potential. You said I could master this. You said I could create anything..." He was trying his hardest to ignore Mrs. Cobb... Mal... standing off to the side, watching the two of them.

Mr. Cobb (Arthur still couldn't think of him by any other name) looked Arthur in the eye. "Perhaps I was wrong."

"This isn't fair!" Arthur cried out, and he knew he was being immature, and he knew this wasn't how he was supposed to handle this, but it wasn't, it iwasn't/i...

All of a sudden, Mr. Cobb rounded on Arthur. "You are just a kid! You let your emotions control your dreams, and you let them control you. If you were ready for this, you could control the environment without cracking under the pressure."

Arthur had never felt like he was being verbally abused before.

"We've been working on this for almost a month now, and I have seen no improvement." Mr. Cobb snapped the PASIV case shut, setting it down on the ground. "As far as I'm concerned, I should book you a flight back to MIT so you can start the next semester."

The young engineer hadn't noticed Mrs. Cobb inching closer to her husband, too engrosed in the shade of the carpet instead of looking up at him, so when he heard her voice, Arthur was surprised to see her holding Mr. Cobb's hand. "Dom... you're being hard on him."

"I expected more from him," Mr. Cobb barked back at her, but Arthur could tell immediately he regretted directing his anger at his wife. Didn't really help Arthur feel better about the situation.

With a squeeze of her hand, Mrs. Cobb gave one last little non-verbal note to her husband before turning to Arthur. "Let me talk to him for a bit, Dom?"

"Fine," he said with a curt surrender, leaving the PASIV device on the ground next to the armchair as he left into what Arthur knew was the married couple's bedroom. Arthur was still standing in the middle of the living room, fists clenched at his side, going over to the chair he'd been sitting in before and slumping into it, massaging his temples.

"Arthur," pleaded the woman still standing in front of him. She was the heart of her husband, filled with beauty and a grace that was indescribable. Arthur hated looking at her. "Please don't take what he says too harshly."

He couldn't help but scoff at her words. "Too harshly?"

She sat down in the chair her husband had occupied before, hands resting on her knees, all of her energy focused on the young man before her. "He's trying to push you. He knows you can do this."

Arthur pushed himself to look up at Mrs. Cobb (calling her Mal was... difficult), attempting a weak smile. "I don't know why I came here. I've been doing everything right, but everytime I go under, I can't keep it up. As soon as I realize it's not real..."

"...It all combusts," she finished his sentence for him. She nodded softly. "I know. I was about your age when I started, before I met Dom. It took me months, almost a year to be able to architect a dream."

This, oddly enough, didn't comfort Arthur. His fist clenched, gripping his denim jeans. "Then why does he expect me to have it in four weeks?"

"Because you're brilliant," Mrs. Cobb said without a beat.

Arthur couldn't deny how that made his heart stop for a moment. No, this wasn't right... He looked down at the carpet again. "I'm a civil engineer. I'm not an architect."

Mal smiled (shit, he was calling her Mal now), leaning forward a little closer to him. "So use your skills. Like Dom said. You understand how cities, towns, villages work."

"I'm trying," Arthur all but whined.

"Stop that," Mal said all of a sudden, causing Arthur to look back up at her. "I expect more from you."

"Why does everybody expect more from me," Arthur sighed, standing up from his chair, turning to walk over to the fireplace, still burning from when they lit it a few hours ago. It was nice to keep out the winter chill, and watching the flames lick the locks was enchanting.

Why had he come here? He had been almost done with a semester, and instead he ran away with some nutjob who was now telling him he wasn't good enough for his hair brained schemes.

"Arthur," Mal broke into Arthur's thoughts with her voice, causing him to turn back to her. "Let's try again. Just you and me."

The young man's brow furrowed, running a hand again through his long, still grown-out hair. "I don't think your husband would appreciate it if you-"

"Let's try again," she insisted. How was he supposed to say no to her?

He let her hook him up to the PASIV, ignoring the brush of her fingers against his when she handed him the lead. He connected himself, relaxing into the chair and taking a deep breath.

"Try to tell yourself what's about to happen. Prepare your mind for it," Mal coached him. Arthur nodded, closing his eyes.

He began outlining the situation in his head. He was the subject of a dream. Mal would create a world, a dream world, and Arthur's subconscious would populate it. He would be dreaming. He would be...

This test was maddening. Why hadn't he studied more for this? Switching his engineering rule over to another side, he re-drew his line on the sketch paper, trying to finish his graph before...

"Times up," droned a voice from the front of the lecture hall. "My TAs will begin collecting your papers now." Damn it...

Arthur reluctantly turned it in. He hated being unprepared. He wasn't sure how he had let himself get into this situation, either. He always studied excessively for exams and tests...

He took up his messenger bag, lugging it over his shoulder and following the throng out of the room. What should he do now? As he made his way out of the building, he breathed in the crisp autumn air. Maybe a little more time in the lab...

The young college student hadn't even noticed the woman walking along side him. "Arthur," she said quietly.

He turned to look at her, jumping slightly at her voice. As soon as he registered who it was, it was like his brain froze.

Mal. He was dreaming.

This wasn't real.

He could feel tremors beneath his feet, and he was frozen, staring at Mal. All of the other students who had been walking were staring at the two of them, frozen in the moment just like Arthur.

Oh God...

"Arthur," she repeated, quieter. "Accept it. Let yourself go into it. Take it into your own hands."

The tremors were still there, but Arthur was staring straight at Mal, ignoring everything else, latched onto her words. It wasn't real...

"Arthur," she repeated once more.

This was his dream. He was dreaming.

It was all in his head. And, logically, anything that was in his head was thought by him. And if he was thinking it... he could control it.

At that instant, the tremors stopped. The projections surrounding them were still staring at them, frozen.

Arthur smiled lightly. "How do you know that exact lecture hall at MIT?"

As if on cue, the students began murmuring again all at the same instant, some whipping out their cell phones, all of them continuing their walks to wherever they were going.

"You'd be surprised how in detail Cob can be with his investigation," Mal said, motioning for Arthur to walk with her. "He didn't just pick you off of one suggestion from the head of your department. He knew you could do this."

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be flattered or more frightened. Based on what he had just done, he was leaning towards a more flattered feeling. He could pull this off.

Mal reached over, playing with one of Arthur's unkept, grown-out strands of hair. "Has anybody told you that you would look much more handsome if you cut your hair?"

Arthur smiled, laughing a little bit. "My mom."

"I'll get you one as soon as we wake up. Shouldn't be much longer, I only set the clock for one minute..."

Sure enough, the next thing Arthur knew, he was stirring from the sedative, eyes blinking open. It was the first time he hadn't woken panting and shocked. He had a light smile on his features.

"Good," a voice suddenly said from above Arthur. "Mal, if you would..."

Arthur sat up to see Mr. Cobb going to his wife, assisting her in removing her lead while already adding his own. Confused and a little pissed, Arthur wasn't sure he wanted to hear more verbal abuse from Mr. Cobb right now.

However, when the older of the two men looked up at Arthur, his eyes were bright. "We'll start examining paradoxes. I think you'll enjoy this."

He was not about to let Mr. Cobb get away with that. "Wait a second, was that all just a set up so that I would stop letting the dreams collapse?"

Mr. Cobb's lips twitched in that shade of a smile Arthur had gotten used to. "Don't flatter yourself, Arthur."