A.N: Okay so I thought I'd get this done on Friday, but that didn't happen. I initially wrote this a few weeks ago because my day had been bad and I felt that it was time to write about the very first idea I had when I considered this series: Mal was a vortex.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or The Sandman. I've once again borrowed a line from "The Sinking Night" by AFI for my title. I will fix errors when I get a chance.
Dream as Arthur, was dragged to where Cobb had been found skulking around the safe hidden behind a screen. Of course he'd been right about where the safe was located, but did he take the advice his point man gave? Did he listen when he was told that Saito knew, and that their mark was playing with them?
And even though he'd been expecting her eventual appearance, it made him pause after he'd spotted her outside leaning against the railing and looking out at the night-dark waters. She was the lure that always drew Cobb's attention, the ghost that had followed after Cobb when the man dreamed and fought for a way back home. Left behind, he got to watch Cobb move back to her side, once again promising that he'd take care of it- the man insisted that this wasn't a problem, though they both knew better.
And that was when the extraction officially went sideways. He was collected by two of Saito's projections of armed guards, taken to where Cobb and Saito were so he'd be used as an example, as a means of forcing Cobb's hand. Mal was also present- she was always present and the look that Cobb sent his way wasn't apologetic. It wasn't even surprised, really. How surprised could Cobb be when his shade of Mal had done similar things during different jobs, always targeting Arthur, or alerting the mark, or making Cobb pause for too long before taking the necessary action.
Even disguised as Arthur, Dream wished that there was a plausible way to make his eyes burn with the light of dying stars, a sharp flare of red because he was honestly pissed off, even if it wasn't something Arthur did in reality or in dreams. He'd warned him. A resentful glare would have to do.
Dressed in something elegant, the shade of Mal pointed a gun in Arthur's face as she stood at Saito's side, facing Cobb who was already sliding his gun across the table, showing his empty hands, even as Dream wrestled against the temptation of conjuring up some dream sand; the guards on either side of him had forced his hands behind him, his fists ineffectually clenched against his lower back. It wouldn't take much thought, a minor flexing of his power as they were dreaming within a dream. It would be child's play, simple.
But as Arthur, he clenched his fist on nothing and waited for Cobb to do something as Saito asked for the envelope, for the name of their employer.
"Ah, there's no use threatening him in a dream, right, Mal?"
In a different situation, Arthur would have cursed- maybe just in English or a few choice foreign languages Dream had cultivated into the character, the mortal identity of Arthur. Dream knew multiple languages as members of all nations and territories entered the Dreaming- he could speak any living, dead, or dreamed up language like the forgotten dream language of colored sparks and smoke.
A particularly ugly curse in that language would probably peel paint, and if Arthur had a real, living and breathing mother, she would most likely demand his mouth washed out with soap and his ears boxed. But while pretending to be Arthur, Dream couldn't wave away a swear that manifested from between his lips as a puff of dark green smoke shot through with hints maroon, followed by dancing sparks that would flash black and red.
He turned his head and looked at the shade of Mal, still pointing her gun at him and launching into a speech that had only one purpose- this back and forth, useless conversation between Cobb and the figure that was supposed to be Mal but wasn't worth half of what the real woman had been, meant nothing but pain. As a dreamsharer, Cobb should have been able to do better than this. But all he wanted to do was punish himself. And Arthur, apparently, because he'd not been spared these attentions since Mal began appearing during their jobs.
"But pain-" she began before lowering her gun and aiming at Arthur's knee. When she shot him, his scream was real; Arthur- as Dream had created him- felt pain, loss, and dreamed like any other. Even in the dream, as a manifestation of a physical manifestation that walked the earth as a man, pain could follow. Dream himself wasn't free from experiencing pain. He wouldn't have been living up to this experiment of life as a mortal if he didn't allow himself to experience everything. The good and the bad. And he knew too well how he deserved the pain...
He sagged in the arms of the guards, forcing them to hold him up as his right leg gave out, radiating a pain that Dream wasn't familiar with through his time as Arthur. It reminded him of a dream he'd walked through once; a dreamer had been climbing Mt. Everest, Dream had followed along, curious to see if this inexperienced climber could do it. The dreamer had taken a fall and broken his leg, nearly obliterating his knee when he tried to land on packed snow instead of ice. He'd missed. In the air of the fading dream, the broken limb was a tuning fork resonating the dreamer's pain into a sound that wasn't a scream or a sob.
It was like the one he was hearing now, struggling to work through the pain, knowing that she would try and shoot the other knee if Cobb didn't hurry the fuck up!
Cobb jumped on the table and slid on his belly just far enough on the polished flat surface to reach his own gun. Before he grabbed it and shot Arthur in the head, all the dream lord acting as point man could hear was a pronounced pnnnnnnng noise.
Dream of the Endless had many responsibilities that related to two things: keeping the dreamers safe, maintaining the Dreaming.
It would have been easy to lay all the blame at Cobb's feet- the PASIV device was clearly dangerous, and Dream's involvement in the Cobb's use of it had been strictly exploratory; to see how much damage it was causing the Dreaming as a whole, monitoring everything with the aid of Lucien.
But when he noticed the signs and conferred with Lucien, it became obvious that Mal Cobb was pushing the boundaries of dream technology too far; that she was becoming reckless as she worked with her husband, going deeper into dreams than any mortal had a right to.
He found them passed out on their living room floor- connected to the PASIV and dreaming away, he noticed something strange about the quality, about the depth of their dreams.
Not dropping the facade of Arthur as he stood before them, pulling off his messenger bag and dumping it on a chair, doing the same with his suit coat and leaving it neatly draped on top of the bag as he watched the Cobbs dream. Rolling up his sleeves and straightening his waistcoat, Dream didn't bother hooking up to the PASIV and entering their dream: instead, he took a step forward and fell through the physical plane, dropped away from reality, and found himself walking the streets of a city overgrown with buildings.
Dream held onto the shape he identified with Arthur, not changing a stitch of the point man's clothing, not even allowing the breeze that smelled like sea salt to ruffle Arthur's carefully styled hair, placing his hands in his pockets and beginning to move. There was an intermingling of dreaming minds here, obvious because the Cobbs were dreaming together, but this had a scent to it that was more than the ocean and asphalt- if he wasn't careful, it might rip away the fabric that bound the forgery of Arthur to Dream.
He'd encountered this in the past. There was a new dream vortex forming at the center of this mess. For now it was localized to two minds trapped in this limbo, but when Arthur forced them to wake it was guaranteed to widen and connect more dreaming minds.
It would become the center of the Dreaming and would destroy his realm unless he did something soon.
Not bothering to try and find them in the labyrinth of a city they'd created, Dream focused and sought out the familiar echoes of their minds- frowning to himself as he noticed something odd.
Still walking, he slipped his left hand free from his pocket. He then held his arm up, forearm parallel to his chest, wrist elevated.
"Matthew," Dream said as a raven appeared, fluttering its wings in surprise to find itself balanced on Dream's wrist. Then it spoke.
"Boss, not that I don't like it when you call for me, cause really, I do- but this place is strange. And I was busy."
He couldn't help it, Dream bit back the smile he was getting so used to wearing as Arthur, attempting to nod sympathetically for Matthew.
"Yes, I know. It's very busy in Eve's cave, isn't it?"
Matthew puffed himself up before settling down again and resigning himself to it.
"When I was a man I didn't have to catch rats."
"You've told me."
"But I'm your raven, so I can't complain. What's up?"
"A dream vortex is here, Matthew. I know her. I have to find her and stop this before it becomes worse."
Matthew spread his wings, ruffled his feathers, and waited for Dream to make his point.
"And I need to talk to you about it."