Introduction
They were dreamers once. They planned, plotted, created and sculpted a world. Like their own, but not. Broken and bruised inside, they escaped to a dream and held ground there. Stood inside their own minds and looked around. Stood inside the mind of another.
A woman slipped, tumbled to her death inside a memory. The dreamer went home to his family. The forger remained blind to the world, to many things. The architect longed to imagine again. The chemist accomplished everything he'd ever wanted. The tourist scrambled for higher ground. The point man fell into something deeper and darker then anything he'd faced before.
And the mark remained in stasis, unaware his life had ever been under their influence. He did not know that the dreamers had infected and invaded him.
He did not know that they were about to do it again.
xxxxx
It starts off slowly.
America is the same as it's always been. Eames adores it. Paris is dignified, cultured, and Eames has no taste for such things. He likes his countries fast and dirty, and America is as filthy as it gets. He gets into a bar fight his first night back, then takes the man home for fumbled sex in the little hours of the morning. He gets into an argument at the supermarket with the checkout girl who charges him five cents extra, takes her home, tears off her ugly polyester shirt, lets her do the same to his paisley. Eames is polite, British as ever when they wake up in the morning, offers breakfast, clarifies that this is a one night stand deal for the second time.
He lives in this way for a couple of months.
Eames buys an apartment, makes it messy with his possessions, shipped from Europe. CD's litter the floor and bright clothes hang over his living chairs. He sips tea at the little table in his kitchen made for one. Listens to The Kills and plays a lot of video games. He's rich as hell, but he's careful with the illegal money, spends it slowly as possible. Nobody gets suspicious. Nobody cares about Quincy Thomas Eames.
The days fly by in a flurry of gambling, sex, and video games. Vegas is great. Eames eats a lot of microwavable meals and misses the basics like homemade macaroni and cheese. He touches his totem a lot. Rubs the familiar grooves of the red poker chip. But no dream would ever be this mundane, this casual.
Eames isn't happy, but he's content enough.
Soon, things begin to speed up. Months fly by until it's the middle of September and a near half year has passed since the inception. The event that changed everything. Eames begins to get jittery, to get uncomfortable. He has more sex- feels it less. It becomes more of a routine then a pleasure. A rut.
Gambling, he throws money away, forgets strategy. Eames begins to itch so hard, he can't sleep. His own skin feels like it's crawling, like it's about to walk off his body and he doesn't dream anymore. When he falls asleep, the images are so fraught with grayscale that it's difficult to make things out. He used to be able to see colors in dreams, to finally make out the feeling everyone seems to go on and on about.
"I dream of PASIV." He says drunkenly to the next man he takes home, when he's trying to take Eames's cock into his mouth, trying to rouse it into some state of hardness. The man looks up at him in confusion. Eames pushes his head back down.
But of course, that's just the monochromacy, the hypocricy, the polygamy talking. That's just another twisted piece that won't fit into the puzzle. Eames doesn't fit into the puzzle.
He used to, though.
He used to be a dreamer.
xxxxx
It picks up speed.
Ariadne transfers to Princeton instead of risking the flight back to Paris. With her spectacular grades, it's easy enough. She shares her little flat with a grey cat she's dubbed Telephos (who was a greek demi-demi-god known as the god of cities), and doesn't date. Her marks start to slip.
Impossible buildings cover her papers. Arching into the sky with little support, twisting at incredible angles, curving and bending like winds. Unusual colors and sizes. Different.
"You can't just say no to gravity, Ariadne." The professor says wearily, passing back her design with a giant red F on it, circled three times.
She used to be able to. Truth is, Ariadne longs for the creativity the dreamworld brings. The mirrored hallways. Even the thrill, the adreneline the kick brings, the thought of yanking that wire out of her vein and sighing happily, like a drug user, like an addict brings new heat to her heart.
Telephos curls up in her lap and Ariadne absently strokes a hand through his fur. She's got a PASIV stored safely, in a deposit box miles from here. When the urge to bend it again starts to get too strong, she reminds herself how dangerous traveling without a partner can be. Squeezes her eyes shut and forces that image of Mal, lying on the concrete, arms outstretched, face peaceful, blood like a halo, that imagined, awful image, Ariadne forces it into her head and keeps her addiction under control.
The architect spends less time eating, and more time drawing. The thin walls of her apartment are covered in pencil sketches, impossible dreams. Soon, pen overlaps them and Ariadne's bending backwards to draw on the ceiling, the only space left. On many sleepless nights, she can be found standing barefoot on her bed, meticulously inking a spire, a column on the ground above her head.
xxxxx
It tumbles and drives.
Cobb is content. As content as possible, given the circumstances. He doesn't work, and though the bills pile up, he spends his entire day with the children, laughing, smiling. He hasn't dreamt in months. He hasn't had a dream, good or bad, since the Fischer job. A civil hollowness fills his head in lieu of colors and shapes.
He confessed this to Arthur once, in the small hours of the morning, eating chinese on the couch, half watching bond films. Arthur, drunk off sleep, tells him that it's good in a way. No more pain.
In a way.
Cobb reads a lot. To the children. To Arthur, who inhabits the spare guest room now. By himself. Shakespeare. The Bible. Dickens. Palahniuk. Anything he can get his hands on, to help him understand a bit more of human nature. To comprehend this life.
James and Phillipa are happy, they flit around the yard like birds in the dying light. The strangest feeling of deja vu strikes him, and Cobb reaches for his totem to establish that this is real. Just routine. The top tumbles quickly, and Cobb says aloud:
"Oh."
"You're still here." Arthur speaks, but he doesn't look away from the window, doesn't look away from James and Phillipa running back towards the house.
Cobb squeezes his shoulder in a brotherly gesture.
"I should really move out soon."
Cobb nods in agreement. But they've said the exact same thing the month before, and the month before that, and the truth is that Arthur occupies the spare room quietly and comfortably. Brings a certain air to the house. A certain calming aura. In a way, it's like having Mal back.
He wakes up the next morning. He wonders if Ariadne still wears red. He vows to find the numbers. The password. To check.
xxxxx
Yusuf is chasing his dreams, pun not intended. He applies to be a chemistry professor at Princeton and is ecstatic when he's accepted. The time passes quickly and happily, days spent teaching classes, nights spent experimenting and putting himself under and dreaming of whatever. He doesn't linger in the past. He takes a few minutes every day to wish that his makeshift family was still with him and moves on.
One night, when he's Skyping his mother in India, the connection fucks up. Yusuf sighs, closing his mac with a gentle hand. He leaves the apartment in favor of the university lab, which has solid internet. The night is cold for fall. He wraps the dark green jacket around himself, shivering, and when the blissfully warm computer lab welcomes him he sighs happily.
It's mostly empty, save a tall man talking quietly to a young woman in the corner. Yusuf slides into a chair at the opposite end of the computer lab as quietly as possible so he doesn't disturb them. He slides his headphones into the jack of his laptop and is signing into Skype when the man pushes rudely past him, knocking his headphones to the floor.
"Cheers." Yusuf mutters unhappily, reaching down to retrieve the earbuds. He winces when the embaressing bloop of the Skype sign in fills the room. A quick glance over at the woman still in the corner confirms that she's not cross. Rather, she's got her face turned away from him, knuckles white.
"Er-" Yusuf begins shyly, attempting to maybe ask her for a pencil, or even just to ask if she's okay. But before he can speak again, the woman turns around and there's dark hair cascading down pale, tear stained cheeks.
In his surprise, Yusuf knocks over his chair. The woman is Ariadne.
xxxxx
Ariadne stays at Yusuf's apartment that night. It smells of cillantro and clean sheets. Yusuf insists she takes the bed, but she doesn't spend much time in it, choosing instead to speak with Yusuf about the past few months. They fall asleep in the small hours of the morning, his head on her shoulder.
Over leftover chinese and pizza, she confesses that she wants to go back to the dream space. He confesses that he still thinks about calling Cobb. Asking him to go back.
"Do you have his number?" Ariadne asks urgently, because, Cobb and Arthur and dreamscape is a lethal and wonderful combination. The number was never obtained by her- Cobb bolted from the airport as quickly as possible the last time they saw each other. And Arthur had hailed a cab, the weariness showing on his face. She hadn't wanted to bother them.
Yusuf shakes his head sadly. "But you've been to his house. In the dream, at least. Maybe we could go there. In the dream."
"Mal won't be there?"
"Only if Cobb is." Yusuf says grimly.
xxxxx
Arthur forces his eyes open in a great rush, tries to absorb the light coming at him all too fast. Tries to figure out what these dreams mean, though they're blatantly obvious. He wants to see them all again.
He knows that Cobb has the numbers, adresses, keeps them in little files in his desk. Arthur doesn't want to ask. Doesn't want to be seen as weak. Doesn't want Cobb to figure out that he kind of- it's just that-
Everything feels empty and pointless without Ariadne laughing beside him, without Eames knocking over his chair, without Yusuf to cause explosions and grin sheepishly. He's just happy that Dom's still around to keep him company, although he'll never in a million years admit it.
Arthur scrapes his fingernails over his wrists, leaving digs and marks there. Something to remind him, later, that this moment is real. He's been doing a lot of that lately. The insides of his thighs are covered in bruises from absently pressing his thumbs there. He'd never discuss this with Cobb, knows he wouldn't understand. It reminds him that he is there. In the moment.
But it doesn't matter. The suit covers the bruises easily. Arthur pulls it on, buttons up the sleeves, taking comfort in a familiar routine.
It's far too early for anyone else to be awake, four in the morning and Cobb's accidently left the lights on downstairs. Arthur reaches for the tea, boils the water, stirs, pours in milk, and then he's just standing there, in the middle of the kitchen.
You're that guy making tea in a suit at four in the morning. He thinks to himself.
"Eames." Arthur gasps, and promptly drops the mug, which shatters on the ground. His hands go to his face, clutching at the flesh there as if that'll make this moment go a little quicker.
A creaking from the top of the stairs signifies someone else is around. Arthur turns to see Phillipa in the doorway to the kitchen, in nothing but her nightgown.
"Don't come in." Arthur says, sudden and urgent.
She regards him carefully. "You loved another. Once."
Shit.
"This isn't real, is it." Arthur turns to look out the window, though the clock reads four, the sun is setting. He can see the outlines of figures, shadow people at dusk. Mal. Cobb. James. Ariadne. Eames. Yusuf. Himself. Laughing. Hugging. Touching.
His movements feel sluggish and slow, and when Phillipa hands him a kitchen knife, Arthur touches it gently to his chest. "Where's my world?" He asks her, sadly.
She thinks about it for a minute. "It used to be out there." Points to where they are now gathered, sitting, talking in hushed tones. "But now I think it's in here." Arthur's projection of Phillipa pushes the blade of his knife forward, gently, slowly, and in a rush he's awake again, up in bed, panting, shaking hands clutching roughly at his dice, ignoring the ache in his chest.
xxxxx
(People tend to assume that Cobb corrupted Arthur and Mal, forced them into dreamsharing with blue eyes and an easy smile. But it wasn't like that. It's never like what people think.
Arthur and Mal were friends first.)
xxxxx
He'd never really given up on the idea of being his father. A Fischer is a Fischer is a Fischer, Maurice had said once, and he's beginning to think he was right. Though he's sold the company to the highest bidder, Robert can't shake off the feeling of disappointment that nearly radiates from every person the minute he walks in through those company doors to check up on things.
They'd kept him on as an employee, and a higher up, too. It was a kind gesture, but in a way, it felt forced. Like a mockery.
And yet- Sophia is beautiful, and he will marry her. And he will have more money then ever. That's not why, though. To be perfectly honest- she's the sort of girl Maurice Fischer wouldn't have approved of.
It's been a long time since his teenage years. It's been six months since his father died. Robert is still rebelling, in his own small ways.
He bought a green tie yesterday. He's been staring at it for hours at a time. Simply put- he's afraid.
xxxxx
And just like that, it comes to a screeching, grinding halt.
"Mr Cobb."
"...is this who I think it is?"
"Meet me in Sydney. The opera house. As soon as possible. I have a business proposition for you."
"...Saito?"
"Bring Arthur."
Click.