xxxxx
Dom apologizes to him - and really, legitimately means it - only once.
Arthur is packing his bag; Dom's suitcase is already waiting down in the hotel lobby. Dom checked out of the Parisian hotel room early - couldn't tolerate the smell of it, the crisp eggshell white walls and the soft blue curtains and the view of the city from the window. Arthur can feel Dom's eyes on his back as he folds his new shirts and stows them in his small suitcase, but he doesn't hear him when Cobb gets close so it's a surprise when he stands and turns, finds the space between them narrowed and Dom just standing there.
Dom's face is clear for all of a second before suddenly his mouth collapses into a sloping line; he makes an awful noise low in his throat that tears at Arthur's stomach and makes his hands shake and for maybe the first time in the days since Mal died, Arthur feels himself start to go. To really go.
But then Dom lurches against him, all hands and blunt angles as he kisses him: hard and open-mouth while his fingers scrabble hot and sharp, clutching at Arthur's skull and grasping at the back of his neck. The taste of him is raw and aching and Arthur gets his hands up between them, catches Dom's shirt. Struggles not to pull at him and instead, a beat, he manages to shove Dom off him.
It takes a few seconds, but Arthur realizes that sound he's hearing is his breathing gone all erratic. Dom is just looking at him, hands ineffectual at his sides. He starts to say something, "Arthur-" voice all edged in danger and need and a sense of just let me do this, please fuck, just this-
"Go get us a taxi," Arthur bites out, nerves high and strangled. It's sharper than he means, but he can't stop himself and Dom has nothing else to do and no reason to argue so he just. Doesn't.
Instead he starts and says, "Christ, I'm so sorry." (Regret and confusion and a beat of something more; Arthur doesn't know if Dom's upset about the rejection or with himself for the kiss, but it won't happen again so maybe it's the latter after all.) Then Dom goes, leaving the door open behind him which is some kind of blessing because it keeps Arthur from losing it completely while he finishes packing.
Arthur scrubs his eyes and washes his face before leaving. He also steals the soap off the vanity just because he can.
xxxxx
Arthur wakes up.
xxxxx
It started out as a military program so that soldiers could shoot and stab and strangle one another in the dream and then wake back up. So they would know what it felt like. After that, Arthur doesn't really know the details - the intimate algorithm as to how the technology went from military training to homeland security, trickling downward until it fell into the hands of brilliant architect Dom Cobb. Arthur wouldn't know anything about shared dreaming if it wasn't for the research and development grant.
He first meets Cobb in Professor Campbell's office. Arthur is mostly aware of the fact that Cobb is older than him, but not really by much and at this point Arthur is so used to talking to older people who are interested in his future that the difference between them seems dramatically smaller than it really is.
"This is Dominic Cobb," Campbell tells him. "He's looking for an assistant for grant work, and I was telling him that you're probably the best man for the job."
They shake hands. Cobb's fingers are soft, although there is a hard callous on his second right-hand finger from holding a pen.
"What's the work?" Arthur asks and Cobb just looks at him, still grasping his hand. He smiles crookedly. And it's small, but still probably the most charming smile Arthur can remember having directed at him. It looks a lot like something of a promise.
Cobb just says, "Let's take a walk."
So they're walking near the water, working their way up the edge of the basin while Cobb talks to him about dreams. He says, "Mostly it's used for security these days - Fortune 500 companies trying to protect their assets. But my wife and I think there's potential for something more. Something-"
"Broader," Arthur supplies.
"There are a lot of possibilities."
Which is something that Arthur can understand - more than he does anything else that Cobb has talked about since the beginning of this conversation. He wants to know all the variables, a mental map (and in this case, that phrase is both hilariously apt and means so much more). "I can run the numbers, but you'll have to take me into the dream state with you. I doubt that I can run it top side."
"Which is why I brought you here."
Arthur pulls up on the concrete pier. It's only now that he realizes it isn't the sidewalk outside the MIT campus, the one which runs along the Charles River Basin. He looks down at the water - that deep darkness - and doesn't recognize any of the buildings reflected on the surface. "Oh." He looks back at Cobb who is giving his this look like he's waiting for something. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
There is a beat where surprise is all over Cobb's face. He looks startled for a second and then puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Yeah," he says, sounds like he might laugh. "You're dreaming alright."
This is why Arthur is the right man for this job: he doesn't ask any more questions and the dream doesn't fall apart until the timer ends.
xxxxx
Arthur wakes up and there is the buzz of something high overhead. It takes him a while to realize that it's the static of the intercom, that it's someone talking. That the captain is talking about the weather in Los Angeles. The sedative makes waking up sloppy and he feels faintly sick low in his stomach. Starving, he thinks.
xxxxx
"What happened?"
"Cobb stayed."
"With Mal?"
"No, to find Saito."
"He'll be lost."
"No, he'll be alright."
xxxxx
Afterward not even Eames will look at him. Irrationally, Arthur somehow hates him for it. It would be better if they'd been caught, if they were shuttled from one room to the next and singled out for questioning one at a time because Arthur just wants to have someone yelling in his face. He wants someone in a uniform with a badge book telling him how fucking long he's going to be spending in prison.
Instead, he hails a cab.
xxxxx
They spend the afternoon walking aimlessly in Rabat, between jobs with no architect and no immediate possibilities. Arthur knows there are things coming down the pipeline (he's currently in contact with two possible contractors), but nothing has cleared yet and they're left with their last paychecks and nothing to do but idle.
Which is what gets to Dom; it grates on his nerves and makes the line of his shoulders collapse steadily as they weave through palm tree lined avenues and local markets and expensive looking streets lined with luxury hotels that they don't actually have any plans to stay in. It's a nice thought, but Arthur says logistically it's a nightmare and they should avoid high expenditures until they have a concrete forward stepping stone and it's not like Dom complains.
Still, they stay at a hotel with a bar where they have a few drinks. It's been six months since Arthur's been to the states, but somehow this is just as comfortable: sitting with one foot up on a bar stool with an elbow on the top, nursing a warm drink and watching a stream of local news punctuated by soccer scores. Dom is next to him sketching on a napkin which he tucks in his pocket as they leave. Later as Arthur takes off his jacket in the bathroom of the hotel room, he watches Dom in the mirror as he writes a letter on the unmarked portion.
Dom tucks the napkin and two dirham notes into an envelope, making sure the currency bills are flat and pristine before sealing it. He addresses the letter to Phillipa and James, but instead of stamping it he just gives it to Arthur who carefully hides it in the cut away lining of his suitcase like it's a secret to be smuggled - for the next time he goes back to the states, more in Dom's stead than anything else.
People remark that he has no imagination. And maybe it's true in a way, but that's because as far as he's concerned there are too many concrete facts that need to be considered - too much that could logically happen to bother concerning himself with fantasy. Besides, if everyone else was running around with rocket launchers, there would be no one left to run statistics, to do the research and to run background checks. Which is why when the guns start going off in Fischer's subconscious Arthur experiences a moment of total shock. It's why the first thing he says to Cobb in the warehouse is that he's sorry, but that's not really good enough for either of them and it won't be good enough later.
xxxxx
Because Arthur wakes up staring at the vinyl top of the first class compartment and he's groggy so it takes a minute, but eventually he rolls over and sits up without using his hands to drag himself up. Ariadne is looking at Cobb, who is still asleep, through her fingers. She says, "Just give him a few minutes." And maybe the rest of them do, but it only takes Arthur forty seconds to unbuckle his seat belt and to leave business class.
He walks all the way through coach to the back and stands with a flight attendant and a flight sick seven year old who is traveling unaccompanied. The flight attendant lets him loiter there aimlessly for maybe two minutes before trying to tell him that he needs to go back to his seat, sir, they're on the descent to L.A.
It's probably only a few seconds, but Arthur feels like he stares at her for something like a minute before he works up a smile and says, "Sorry, of course."