To Sleep, Perchance To Dream
For Jared. I'm Sorry.
Eames and Arthur established relationship, from Arthur's POV.
I can still dream without going under with the PASIV. Well, I can still have one dream.
Nightmare though may be more accurate.
If I began to explain it to you I'm sure you would realize what I was talking about. It's what wakes me screaming almost every night, and sends me thrashing through the endless sea of our blankets to the side where you have awakened abruptly to find my nails like claws in your arm.
I frighten you because I am crying and you don't know why and I say that I can't remember. And then you will hold me for minutes or hours, for however long it takes for me to go back to sleep and then longer, so you can watch me. You want to know what frightens me so badly that I demand even in my drowsy panic that you swear never to leave me.
I say I can't remember the dream once I wake up but I can. I always do.
You are stranded in the middle of a river. I am on its bank. The waters are rising and I know you will die if I cannot get to you. Every time I try though, anonymous hands drag me back from the edge. I fight and I claw and I try and get to you, but those faceless people just keep pulling me back. You don't even look like you trying to get closer to the shore, you're just standing there letting the water lap up over your knees.
It's ok Arthur, you're saying Go on without me, save yourself.
No! I insist I'm not leaving without you.
The water is rising now at an alarming rate. I have gotten one arm free and I'm reaching for you, stretching as far out over the rushing water as the hands holding me back will let me, but you're not reaching for me, you're just standing there.
I snap around to scream at the people I can't see, the people keeping me away from you. I scream at them about how I need you, how I have to save you. They grab me harder, bruising my arm and shoulder and I turn back around to where you should be.
But you're not there anymore.
The water has washed you away.