Incpetion Kink Meme - Arthur/Cobb, kidnapped
Title: untitled
Pairing: Arthur/Cobb
Rating: R
Prompt: Arthur gets kidnapped/terribly injured in reality while prepping for a job he thought he could pull off without back-up. Cobb shows up to save him. I'm just desperate for a fic that explores the partnership/friendship between these two.
Warnings: Moderately graphic descriptions of injuries, heavy angst and slight UST.
There were those who liked to say that shared dreaming was all about creativity, about imagination, but Arthur knew only too well that the art was only a part of it, though admittedly it was the the most glorious one. But beyond that, there were the hours, weeks, months of planning that went into even the simplest of jobs, and when things were illegal they got even more complicated.
Not every extractor worked with a point man-most of them didn’t really comprehend what he did except force them to split the payment another way-but those who understood and could afford it always did. It was the point man’s job to do the dirty parts, to step back from the artistry of it and think about the practical. It was his job to apply order to the chaos, to forge a path through the insanity that could result when people tried to walk unscathed in dreams.
Arthur had heard himself described as a bodyguard or a researcher, and those were both true and incomplete. His role was to understand everything, to know it all so nothing got left behind. He picked up the slack. It was more accurate, he thought, when he heard people describe him simply as invaluable.
And so he assumed the risks of the job. His role was to give the rest of the team what they needed to perform their jobs, and that meant willingly stepping into the line of fire. It also meant that he was the one asking questions, and when someone took offense it was him that they would hunt down.
Even in reality, Arthur was a capable fighter, and he took down the first two men that came for him with a minimum of fuss, and managed to put a bullet through the third before something cracked him in the back of the skull. He went to his knees in a haze of white pain, and someone’s foot came down on his wrist, sending another jolt of agony through him. The gun skittered from his fingers. Before he could even try to stand something came in from the side, colliding with his head and sent him toppling over onto the ground.
He felt grit under his cheek, and then there was a third sharp blow, and everything went completely black.
-----
Time passed, though Arthur wasn’t sure how much. Moments seemed to fade in and out at a random rhythm, connected by a thread of constant confusion and intermittent pain. He became aware he was being tortured, in a distant sort of way, and from then on worked hard not to regain his senses. It was easier to cope when nothing made sense, when the words his captors screamed in his face didn’t register. He couldn’t betray his team if he couldn’t understand the questions.
Sometimes he fought his way to lucidity, and found himself somewhere dark and bare. He figured it might be a basement, though any thought beyond that tended to make his head pound horribly, and when he tried to move a thousand other places burned with lesser pain. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten most of the injuries, and he didn’t want to recall the few he could.
So he drifted.
And then Dom appeared, and Arthur wished his hands were untied so he could throw his totem-though now that he thought about it he had no idea if he even had it anymore.
There were other men with Dom, a few of whom Arthur recognized vaguely as people he’d worked with before, in another time that seemed only vague and fuzzy in the face of the dizzying pain. Dom said his name, and Arthur wanted to reply that he’s fine, that he hears-but when Dom lifted him up a little by an arm under his shoulders he can only scream, feeling bone grate brokenly in half-a-dozen places before the agony overwhelms him again and he passes out gratefully.
-----
When Arthur next awoke, he was somewhere painfully bright that smelled strongly of antiseptic. All his limbs felt stiff and heavy. His eyes refused to focus for the first few seconds, though his mind was too numb to go toward panic immediately, and then they landed on the only thing in the room not white and neat and perfect.
Dom was asleep in the chair next to Arthur’s hospital bed, his head pillowed on the edge of the mattress, his fingers curled loosely around the blanket. Even sleeping, there were dark circles under his eyes and a crease between his eyebrows, and from the state of his clothes and beard he hadn’t left in days. Arthur wanted to say something, but there was a tube down his throat and he couldn’t move his hands.
Before he could gather the effort, though, something near his ear beeped faintly, and he felt a wave of cloudiness smother his thoughts again.
-----
Dom was with him again when the doctors woke him up, shining lights in his eyes and asking him if he remembers his name, his address. Arthur’s first instinct is to give a pseudonym, to weave some lie that would cover the team’s ass, but Dom called him by his name almost as soon as he awoke, and when Arthur gave him a quizzical look, Dom shook his head, lips tight.
They said it had been four days that he was trapped, and Arthur had to admit that his captors had been efficient. He’d had at least twenty fractures, big and small, the worst of which was a left arm broken in two places that had required surgery. The metal pins and stitches were covered with bandages, but through the morphine he could still feel it aching acutely. They’d kept him unconscious for the first week and a half, to allow his internal injuries to heal, and so when Dom brought him a mirror most of the cuts and bruises on his face were all but faded, though there were still half a dozen neat black stitches in a gash above his eyebrow.
“I look like hell,” he’d said conversationally, handing the mirror back quickly to keep from staring at his own hollowed cheeks and pale skin.
“You looked worse,” Dom responded, and his face looked haunted.
They brought in a psychologist to talk to him, to try to get him to explain what had happened, but Arthur stuck to the story that Dom had given him. He’d been jumped in an alley, he didn’t know his kidnappers, he never saw their faces, he was fine now and coping well. The woman kept insisting that he ought to seek therapy for the trauma, but Arthur dismissed the idea out of hand. He was the one who rooted around in stranger’s minds, not the one who let other people dig around in his.
He did agree to stay in the hospital for awhile longer, mostly because his legs tended to shake uncontrollably whenever he tried to walk and it was a lot easier to be seen using a wheelchair in the antiseptic-scented halls than out on the street. One of the doctors had written “psychosomatic” on his chair next to the complaint, and Arthur had laughed and showed it to Dom when he came to visit next.
“They think I’m completely traumatized,” he said, setting the clipboard down and accepting the plastic shopping bag Dom passed him. It was full of the things the hospital didn’t offer: chips, new magazines, a pack of cigarettes.
He noted the way Dom’s mouth twisted down, and rolled his eyes.
“Dom, I’m fine. As soon as the doctors give the word, I can go back home, and I can get back to work,” Arthur said.
“If you think that’s a good idea.”
Arthur set down the magazine-- GQ-- that he’d pulled out of the bag. “You don’t think it is?”
“I don’t know, Arthur,” Dom sank down into the chair that had become his, sighing heavily, “You were really hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“Not this badly. Not outside of dreams.”
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. It was true. He’d been stabbed, shot, literally ripped limb-from-limb, but he’d always woken up from the experience unscathed. The period of recuperation was driving him stir-crazy. Maybe that was what Dom was reacting to, the restlessness that had seized Arthur a few days into his hospital stay. “I’m fine. I’m just bored. I need something to do.”
“I’ll bring you some crosswords,” Dom said, and Arthur was relieved to see him smile.
-----
The four interminable weeks cooped up in the hospital were almost unbearably boring, and Arthur found himself impatient with almost everything the doctors insisted he do. Physical therapy was too slow, and he kept pushing himself past what they allowed him to do while supervised, and finally could make his way around the halls of the hospital unsupported. The stitches came out, bit by bit, and each specialist finally got around to closing his file and saying that everything seemed to be progressing normally.
Except the psychologist, of course, who kept writing that he needed to participate in therapy to fully deal with his “trauma.” Apparently someone had told her he was having nightmares, but what extractor didn’t experience a few restless dreams once in awhile? It was that, or the blankness of eternally empty sleep, and Arthur preferred to suffer from the latter.
Dom was not his only visitor, but he was by far the most reliable. At first he made excuses, claiming to have just been in the area, but eventually they fell into a routine. Arthur would make sure to be awake and alert when Dom arrived (conversation had proved impossible on the dose of vicodin the doctors prescribed, and he was willing to deal with a little pain to talk to Dom,) and Dom would bring him news, problems from work, and a break from the antiseptic blankness of the hospital.
He drove Arthur home when he was finally released, followed him up the two flight of stairs to his apartment door and came inside, hovering in Arthur’s blind spot, more annoying than any nurse. Arthur would have shouted at him to stop it and calm down, but he was feeling nauseous from the heavy dose of medication he’d taken before he left, and so just sat down groggily on the couch in the living room, watching Dom unpack the canvas bag stuffed full of the things he’d acquired during his stay.
“How soon can you come back to work?” Dom asked, and Arthur perked up considerably, forcing himself to sit up straighter.
“Tomorrow, if it doesn’t involve sprinting.”
He heard Dom laugh. “Nothing like that. I don’t want you in the action for a little while yet.” Dom paused long enough that Arthur suspected he was debating whether or not to say anything more, then said with an overly casual tone, “I just want to test out a new maze, and I need a guinea pig.”
“I’m up for it,” Arthur said, leaning back against the couch. He’d meant to say more, he really had, but the fog of medication and sudden exertion of moving out of the hospital overtook him without even the slightest warning, and he felt himself drifting for a minute before he lost track all together.
-----
Arthur was shocked to find that, in the dream, his body was still wrapped in bloodied bandages, and he was face-to-face with a projection that looked like the leader of his captors. He was a stocky man, dark-skinned and completely bald, dressed in an incongruously casual t-shirt and jeans. Arthur took a step back automatically, and his body screamed in pain, forcing a agonized gasp from his lips.
He didn’t see Dom anywhere.
Panic creeping up his spine, he tried to remind himself that it was only a dream, that his body was just an expression of his own thoughts and he could just as easily wish away the injuries, the pain-- They hadn’t been earned in the dream, they’d been brought in, and they could be banished just as easily.
The projection took a step towards him, and Arthur felt blind panic surge up to engulf him before he had a chance to try and fight it back, and his unbroken arm reached for the gun holstered at his side-- His backup plan, in case he hadn’t been able to make it out of Dom’s maze or there was a problem.
This was definitely a problem.
Muzzle up against his temple, and he squeezed the trigger frantically. There was only a split-second more of awareness, in which he saw the projection reaching out towards him with hands smeared in red--
Then he sat up gasping, every nerve in his body screaming shrilly. Dom was still sleeping, reclining on the couch next to him. Arthur lunged forward without bothering to unhook himself from the machine, fingers scrabbling at Dom’s sleeve for purchase before he yanked him hard, rolling him off the edge of the seat. He came awake halfway through the fall, limbs flailing, and barely managed to catch himself before he hit the carpeted floor.
“Arthur-- What--” His eyes were wide, startled, and it took him a second to focus on Arthur’s face. “What happened? Where were you?”
Arthur was kneeling on the floor, still connected to the PASIV by the line in his wrist, his arm in its case bent across his chest, and he realized his heart was racing as he spoke, his breath coming in harsh pants, “Saw the guy that got me.”
He didn’t need to explain. Comprehension dawned on Dom’s face, and he reached out to grab Arthur’s uninjured arm, squeezing his shoulder.
“It wasn’t real. It was only a projection in a dream.” His eyes dropped down to Arthur’s pocket. “Your totem.”
“Right--” Arthur’s voice was shaky, but his hand was steady as he fished for the red die, let it slip from his fingers onto the carpet. It didn’t roll as well on the soft surface and ended up propped on its edge. Arthur bit down the panic that came from another instant of not knowing, and picked it up again, shifting around to toss it onto the wooden seat of the chair he’d all but thrown himself out of.
It came up five twice in a row, and Arthur’s heart stopped trying to pound its way out of his chest as he threw it a third time. Five.
“You okay?” Dom asked, and Arthur looked back around at him. He was rolling up the IV line, but his eyes were fixed solely on Arthur.
“I’m okay,” Arthur said, settling back on his heels, trying to return his breathing to a normal rhythm, “I just panicked. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Dom tucked the tubing into the PASIV case. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
It occurred to Arthur, briefly, to keep this private, but that wasn’t how things went with Dom, and he took a deep breath. “I went into the dream, and my body was still injured, like when I first woke up in the hospital--”
“Stop,” Dom said, and Arthur looked up at him, frowning. “That’s not the beginning I meant. Tell me what happened before we found you.”
“I--” Arthur hesitated, then got clumsily to his feet, supporting himself with his uninjured arm braced against the chair. Dom’s hand moved to support his elbow, and Arthur met his gaze briefly, “I don’t know what there is to tell. Derickson’s people must have gotten word that we were attempting an extraction, and some of his people managed to follow me back from questioning his valet and grabbed me.” He shrugged, “They hit me in the head pretty hard. A lot of it was a blur.”
“But you saw who it was well enough to make a projection of them,” Dom said. “And whoever it was rattled you-- Rattled you, Arthur.” He sighed, and the frown line between his eyebrows deepened slightly, “You don’t scare easily.”
“I’m not scared,” Arthur said blankly, “It just startled me.”
“Then why did you wake me up? Why did you panic?”
The question made Arthur cross his arms (awkward around the cast) uncomfortably, and he shrugged, “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll handle it on my own.”
“No-- Don’t. That’s not what I’m saying.” Dom breathed out hard, and closed the lid of the PASIV firmly. “I shouldn’t have let you put yourself in harm’s way.”
“That’s my job, don’t be stupid,” Arthur shrugged, “If it wasn’t me, it could have been you, or someone else on the team. I can handle it better than them.”
“You’re handling it well enough to wake up in a panic,” Dom said, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t think you’re okay.”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
That night, the nightmares returned, and this time they had faces.
-----
Arthur didn’t dare to try sharing another dream with Dom and instead spent the time researching, planning, drawing up blueprints, and generally distracting himself from the memory of having his defenses overwhelmed, however transiently. Dom had begun work on assembling a team while Arthur did the desk work. Their sources had said Eames was busy with some high-profile case Saito had thrown his way, but a few days after they’d sent out feelers asking about him he showed up at the door to the rented office they were using as headquarters and asked to be on the team.
“Your jobs are always more interesting,” he’d explained.
Dom had tried to contact Ariadne, but she was apparently somewhere in Switzerland working with the inventor of the PASIV technology, and couldn’t risk another illegal job. She sent a very nice note explaining the situation, along with a get-well-soon card for Arthur (though how she’d found out he’d been injured, Arthur couldn’t guess, though Eames had looked smug.) They made a few other inquiries, but Dom finally decided that they would almost certainly be able to handle the preparation themselves and didn’t need an architect.
The job wasn’t complex enough to require a dedicated chemist, though Yusuf was in the area and stopped by to personally deliver the Somnacin that Dom ordered from him. Arthur took him aside, after they’d all had a little time to catch up, and asked him if there was any way to chemically suppress invasive projections.
“You’re the second man to ask me that, Arthur, and I’ll tell you what I told Dom,” Yusuf said, “Any sort of suppression would be tantamount to wrapping up the entirety of your subconscious in chains. It’s simply not feasible.”
So Eames and Dom worked in the dreams, while Arthur stayed strictly on the outside. A few times Dom offered him the opportunity, but Arthur turned him down, explaining that he thought he’d have to get out of the cast before his subconscious body stopped showing injuries, and in any case someone needed to play technician.
Once the cast came off, his excuse got weaker, but Dom didn’t press him.
Eames wasn’t as understanding, and kept asking him when he was going to stop lazing around and pull his weight.
“I’m doing plenty, thanks,” Arthur responded, usually followed by a comprehensive list of the hundred little things that wouldn’t have gotten done without his input, but of course Eames wasn’t actually looking for facts, he was just being irritating.
The arrangement wasn’t going to last in the long term, of course, and eventually Eames wasn’t around when Dom needed someone else in the dream with him, and he turned to Arthur again.
“It’s a different setting, we shouldn’t be separated this time,” Dom said, “If there’s... an issue, I’ll be able to help you deal with it.”
Arthur just nodded and rolled up his sleeve.
The injuries weren’t as debilitating as they’d been the first time, but Arthur was still unprepared for that first stab of pain as he became aware of himself and the dream. He managed to take in his surroundings-- a balcony, decorated for a lavish party, overlooking a picturesque city-- before the edges of his vision went white and he sank to his knees.
“Arthur--?” Dom’s voice was very close, and Arthur sensed him drop down beside him, a hand coming to rest gingerly on his back, “Arthur-- Fuck you’re bleeding--”
As the shock of sudden pain started to fade and adrenaline and endorphins started to flood in and counteract it, Arthur forced himself to take a deeper breath, “Fine, just-- need a second--”
His ribs didn’t crack when his lungs expanded, and he started to take inventory, insulating himself from the agony with a clean list of damages. His nose was bleeding, as it had been for most of his time in captivity (apparently punching someone in the face was as creative as most of the goons could get,) and he could feel lacerations on his arms and chest, red soaking into the sleeves of his dress shirt. His wrists and ankles ached from having been bound, his arm was useless again at his side, and the bruises were too numerous to count. In all likelihood, he was bleeding internally, but he wouldn’t be in the dream long enough for that to really start affecting him, thankfully.
Dom’s touch was warm and solid on his back, and when Arthur reached out blindly, he found Dom’s other hand reaching out to steady him.
“Arthur--” Dom sounded positively tormented, and Arthur forced himself to look up.
“Startled me--” he managed, then spat the blood flowing from his nose into his mouth onto the concrete by his knees, “Sorry, I-- I still can’t get over this. I don’t think I can be of much use to you.”
“No-- Don’t--” If anything, Dom looked more pained, and Arthur squeezed his hand. “I shouldn’t have let you handle the research for that job by yourself, it was way too dangerous.”
“It’s my job,” Arthur snapped, sick of this argument already, “I accepted the risks when I signed on with you, Cobb.”
“I don’t pay you to get tortured in reality.”
“Can we please not talk about this right now?!” Arthur said, “I can try to go on, or we can stop now-- I don’t want to sit here and listen to you lecture me until I bleed to death!”
Dom looked guilty for a second, and then grabbed his gun out of its holster. The familiar cold of the barrel against Arthur’s skin was barely tangible through the chorus of other pains, and then there was a loud bang and nothing except reality.
-----
He asked Eames if there was any way to forge away injuries in a dream, and the look he got was far more calculating than Yusuf’s.
“Yes,” Eames said, “But you’ll still feel them. They won’t be visible, they won’t bleed, but if they’re hurting you, you’ll have to hide that yourself.”
“Good enough.” Arthur said, “Show me how.”
Forgery took imagination and Arthur had failed at most previous attempts, but it was easier to imagine himself whole than someone completely unique. The marks he could see faded as he concentrated on them, though he could still feel their sting, and after a moment he glanced up at Eames, who nodded curtly.
“You look healed,” he said, “Does Cobb know about this?”
“He knows about the injuries,” Arthur said, checking his watch to see whether it was worth it to give himself an early kick.
“But not that you’re trying to hide them?”
Arthur hesitated slightly, then sighed. “No.”
-----
Arthur managed to fake his way through the next practice run Dom asked him to come along on. He hid his pain whenever he had to take a step, fought back the urge to yelp when someone grabbed his arm.
Eames noticed, and watched Arthur with a calculating look as he struggled.
The ruse was rewarded with Dom’s fleeting smile when the timer ran down and the three of them awoke, and Arthur managed to pull it off again twice more before things went sour.
It was probably complacency that triggered it. Arthur had started to grow over-confident in his ability to hide the extent of his injuries and continued pain in-dream. Dom hadn’t caught on, and didn’t seem likely to notice, and Eames-- Well, Eames was mum on the subject, but he hadn’t appeared to have told Dom anything either.
Only, then Arthur found himself surrounded by projections he recognized as if from a feverish hallucination-- Men who closed in and grabbed at him and the others. Arthur could hear Dom shouting something through the renewed terror bursting through the hastily constructed dams he’d been trying to use to hold it back, hear Eames cursing violently and the sound of gunfire.
The forgery was impossible to maintain, and Arthur felt himself falling apart completely.
Then he woke up.
Eames was already ripping the needle from his skin, cursing in a ceaseless stream, and the second Dom stirred he lunged, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him upright.
Arthur went for the gun he wasn’t wearing, his fingers grasping at the empty air near his hip, but before he could get to his feet to defend Dom, Eames was shouting, a finger jabbing into Dom’s face.
“He is too much of a risk to have in the dreams! You either fix him properly or get him the fuck out of here-- He’s obviously incapable of handling this himself.”
It sounded like the end of an argument, not the beginning, and Arthur’s hopes that Eames had been discreet evaporated. Eames’ fist tightened on Dom’s shirt for a second, and then he released him, fixing Arthur with a furious glare for a second before going toward the door.
A second passed before Arthur could make himself move, and then he lurched forward to touch Dom’s shoulder lightly. The other man started, turning to look at Arthur with a guarded expression.
“We need to talk.”
-----
“This is something I simply have to take care of myself,” Arthur said twenty minutes after Eames had slammed the door behind him and Dom had poured himself a drink. He was standing in front of Dom’s desk in his home. Dom had made the drive white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and hadn’t spoken yet, only come inside after gesturing for Arthur to follow and flung himself down with a drink in hand.
“You’re not handling it, that’s the problem.”
“I just need more time to perfect my control of it.” Arthur tried to sound patient, reasonable, but the sight of Dom’s eyes fixed so steadily on him from across the desk was unsettling, and he crossed his arms, glancing away, “I had it completely taken care of for a few dreams. I just need to figure out what’s triggering the projections to--”
Dom’s glass hit the wood of the desk with a loud bang, and Arthur fell silent, looking back to see his fingers tight around the glass.
“That isn’t handling, that’s suppressing. You know what happened last time an extractor tried to suppress a trauma.” Mal’s name hung unspoken between them like a curse. “It’s not going to end well, and you’re going to be completely incapacitated.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Arthur demeaned, barely keeping his voice below a harsh shout, “Go to therapy? What do I tell them-- I’m having nightmares?”
“Yes-- No-- I don’t fucking know, Arthur!” Dom stood, his chair hitting the file cabinet behind it hard, “You could try telling me there’s something wrong instead of trying to hide it from me! Do you think I’d-- I’d cut you loose if you couldn’t-- If there was a problem?”
Arthur didn’t. “You should. You can’t let personal feelings get in the way of your job--”
“Well your damn job is to be the man I trust, Arthur! If I can’t do that, I don’t have any real options!” Dom snatched up the glass, draining it before letting it fall back to the desk and sighing sharply, “You have to let me help you with this. If it makes you feel better to say I’m doing it because I’m such a fucking professional I don’t want to lose an ‘asset’, fine. I don’t care what you tell yourself as long as you let me help.”
Arthur stood still for a moment, staring down at the glass.
“It wouldn’t help to tell you,” he said finally, and he saw Dom’s shoulder’s sag, “There’s nothing you can do to change what happened.” His hand moved, automatically, to touch the arm that had been broken, his longest-lasting physical reminder.
“You won’t even let me try?” Dom asked, softly, and Arthur looked up to see him leaning with both hand’t braced on the edge of the desk, “I don’t want to lose you to this. It was my fault you got hurt, but I can’t--” He stopped short of what he wanted to say, and Arthur was glad he could still feign ignorance.
“I’m sorry, Dom.” Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, “But Eames is right. I’m not safe to dream with. I’m too unstable, and until I can get control of-- Of myself and of those projections, I can’t... expose the team to that. It’s too much of a danger.”
The silence settled like a layer of ice, numbing Arthur from the outside in, and he forced himself to freeze the reluctance and the pain of seeing Dom shaking. It was useless to try and argue with simple fact.
“Don’t I even get a two week’s notice?” Dom asked after too long for mere thought, and his voice was tight, his face still turned towards the desk.
“No,” Arthur said.
“Will you come back?”
“I’ll try to be able to work again as soon as possible--”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Dom fixed him with that gaze again, and Arthur had to fight to keep the ice from cracking.
“Then I don’t think I can answer you, Cobb.” Every movement was heavy and slow, and Arthur had to think to put his body into motion, walking towards the front door. He heard Dom sit, the clink of glass-on-glass as he poured.
Arthur steeled himself against the sunshine outside, and walked blindly away from Dom’s house.
Pairing: Arthur/Cobb
Rating: R
Prompt: Arthur gets kidnapped/terribly injured in reality while prepping for a job he thought he could pull off without back-up. Cobb shows up to save him. I'm just desperate for a fic that explores the partnership/friendship between these two.
Warnings: Moderately graphic descriptions of injuries, heavy angst and slight UST.
There were those who liked to say that shared dreaming was all about creativity, about imagination, but Arthur knew only too well that the art was only a part of it, though admittedly it was the the most glorious one. But beyond that, there were the hours, weeks, months of planning that went into even the simplest of jobs, and when things were illegal they got even more complicated.
Not every extractor worked with a point man-most of them didn’t really comprehend what he did except force them to split the payment another way-but those who understood and could afford it always did. It was the point man’s job to do the dirty parts, to step back from the artistry of it and think about the practical. It was his job to apply order to the chaos, to forge a path through the insanity that could result when people tried to walk unscathed in dreams.
Arthur had heard himself described as a bodyguard or a researcher, and those were both true and incomplete. His role was to understand everything, to know it all so nothing got left behind. He picked up the slack. It was more accurate, he thought, when he heard people describe him simply as invaluable.
And so he assumed the risks of the job. His role was to give the rest of the team what they needed to perform their jobs, and that meant willingly stepping into the line of fire. It also meant that he was the one asking questions, and when someone took offense it was him that they would hunt down.
Even in reality, Arthur was a capable fighter, and he took down the first two men that came for him with a minimum of fuss, and managed to put a bullet through the third before something cracked him in the back of the skull. He went to his knees in a haze of white pain, and someone’s foot came down on his wrist, sending another jolt of agony through him. The gun skittered from his fingers. Before he could even try to stand something came in from the side, colliding with his head and sent him toppling over onto the ground.
He felt grit under his cheek, and then there was a third sharp blow, and everything went completely black.
-----
Time passed, though Arthur wasn’t sure how much. Moments seemed to fade in and out at a random rhythm, connected by a thread of constant confusion and intermittent pain. He became aware he was being tortured, in a distant sort of way, and from then on worked hard not to regain his senses. It was easier to cope when nothing made sense, when the words his captors screamed in his face didn’t register. He couldn’t betray his team if he couldn’t understand the questions.
Sometimes he fought his way to lucidity, and found himself somewhere dark and bare. He figured it might be a basement, though any thought beyond that tended to make his head pound horribly, and when he tried to move a thousand other places burned with lesser pain. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten most of the injuries, and he didn’t want to recall the few he could.
So he drifted.
And then Dom appeared, and Arthur wished his hands were untied so he could throw his totem-though now that he thought about it he had no idea if he even had it anymore.
There were other men with Dom, a few of whom Arthur recognized vaguely as people he’d worked with before, in another time that seemed only vague and fuzzy in the face of the dizzying pain. Dom said his name, and Arthur wanted to reply that he’s fine, that he hears-but when Dom lifted him up a little by an arm under his shoulders he can only scream, feeling bone grate brokenly in half-a-dozen places before the agony overwhelms him again and he passes out gratefully.
-----
When Arthur next awoke, he was somewhere painfully bright that smelled strongly of antiseptic. All his limbs felt stiff and heavy. His eyes refused to focus for the first few seconds, though his mind was too numb to go toward panic immediately, and then they landed on the only thing in the room not white and neat and perfect.
Dom was asleep in the chair next to Arthur’s hospital bed, his head pillowed on the edge of the mattress, his fingers curled loosely around the blanket. Even sleeping, there were dark circles under his eyes and a crease between his eyebrows, and from the state of his clothes and beard he hadn’t left in days. Arthur wanted to say something, but there was a tube down his throat and he couldn’t move his hands.
Before he could gather the effort, though, something near his ear beeped faintly, and he felt a wave of cloudiness smother his thoughts again.
-----
Dom was with him again when the doctors woke him up, shining lights in his eyes and asking him if he remembers his name, his address. Arthur’s first instinct is to give a pseudonym, to weave some lie that would cover the team’s ass, but Dom called him by his name almost as soon as he awoke, and when Arthur gave him a quizzical look, Dom shook his head, lips tight.
They said it had been four days that he was trapped, and Arthur had to admit that his captors had been efficient. He’d had at least twenty fractures, big and small, the worst of which was a left arm broken in two places that had required surgery. The metal pins and stitches were covered with bandages, but through the morphine he could still feel it aching acutely. They’d kept him unconscious for the first week and a half, to allow his internal injuries to heal, and so when Dom brought him a mirror most of the cuts and bruises on his face were all but faded, though there were still half a dozen neat black stitches in a gash above his eyebrow.
“I look like hell,” he’d said conversationally, handing the mirror back quickly to keep from staring at his own hollowed cheeks and pale skin.
“You looked worse,” Dom responded, and his face looked haunted.
They brought in a psychologist to talk to him, to try to get him to explain what had happened, but Arthur stuck to the story that Dom had given him. He’d been jumped in an alley, he didn’t know his kidnappers, he never saw their faces, he was fine now and coping well. The woman kept insisting that he ought to seek therapy for the trauma, but Arthur dismissed the idea out of hand. He was the one who rooted around in stranger’s minds, not the one who let other people dig around in his.
He did agree to stay in the hospital for awhile longer, mostly because his legs tended to shake uncontrollably whenever he tried to walk and it was a lot easier to be seen using a wheelchair in the antiseptic-scented halls than out on the street. One of the doctors had written “psychosomatic” on his chair next to the complaint, and Arthur had laughed and showed it to Dom when he came to visit next.
“They think I’m completely traumatized,” he said, setting the clipboard down and accepting the plastic shopping bag Dom passed him. It was full of the things the hospital didn’t offer: chips, new magazines, a pack of cigarettes.
He noted the way Dom’s mouth twisted down, and rolled his eyes.
“Dom, I’m fine. As soon as the doctors give the word, I can go back home, and I can get back to work,” Arthur said.
“If you think that’s a good idea.”
Arthur set down the magazine-- GQ-- that he’d pulled out of the bag. “You don’t think it is?”
“I don’t know, Arthur,” Dom sank down into the chair that had become his, sighing heavily, “You were really hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“Not this badly. Not outside of dreams.”
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. It was true. He’d been stabbed, shot, literally ripped limb-from-limb, but he’d always woken up from the experience unscathed. The period of recuperation was driving him stir-crazy. Maybe that was what Dom was reacting to, the restlessness that had seized Arthur a few days into his hospital stay. “I’m fine. I’m just bored. I need something to do.”
“I’ll bring you some crosswords,” Dom said, and Arthur was relieved to see him smile.
-----
The four interminable weeks cooped up in the hospital were almost unbearably boring, and Arthur found himself impatient with almost everything the doctors insisted he do. Physical therapy was too slow, and he kept pushing himself past what they allowed him to do while supervised, and finally could make his way around the halls of the hospital unsupported. The stitches came out, bit by bit, and each specialist finally got around to closing his file and saying that everything seemed to be progressing normally.
Except the psychologist, of course, who kept writing that he needed to participate in therapy to fully deal with his “trauma.” Apparently someone had told her he was having nightmares, but what extractor didn’t experience a few restless dreams once in awhile? It was that, or the blankness of eternally empty sleep, and Arthur preferred to suffer from the latter.
Dom was not his only visitor, but he was by far the most reliable. At first he made excuses, claiming to have just been in the area, but eventually they fell into a routine. Arthur would make sure to be awake and alert when Dom arrived (conversation had proved impossible on the dose of vicodin the doctors prescribed, and he was willing to deal with a little pain to talk to Dom,) and Dom would bring him news, problems from work, and a break from the antiseptic blankness of the hospital.
He drove Arthur home when he was finally released, followed him up the two flight of stairs to his apartment door and came inside, hovering in Arthur’s blind spot, more annoying than any nurse. Arthur would have shouted at him to stop it and calm down, but he was feeling nauseous from the heavy dose of medication he’d taken before he left, and so just sat down groggily on the couch in the living room, watching Dom unpack the canvas bag stuffed full of the things he’d acquired during his stay.
“How soon can you come back to work?” Dom asked, and Arthur perked up considerably, forcing himself to sit up straighter.
“Tomorrow, if it doesn’t involve sprinting.”
He heard Dom laugh. “Nothing like that. I don’t want you in the action for a little while yet.” Dom paused long enough that Arthur suspected he was debating whether or not to say anything more, then said with an overly casual tone, “I just want to test out a new maze, and I need a guinea pig.”
“I’m up for it,” Arthur said, leaning back against the couch. He’d meant to say more, he really had, but the fog of medication and sudden exertion of moving out of the hospital overtook him without even the slightest warning, and he felt himself drifting for a minute before he lost track all together.
-----
Arthur was shocked to find that, in the dream, his body was still wrapped in bloodied bandages, and he was face-to-face with a projection that looked like the leader of his captors. He was a stocky man, dark-skinned and completely bald, dressed in an incongruously casual t-shirt and jeans. Arthur took a step back automatically, and his body screamed in pain, forcing a agonized gasp from his lips.
He didn’t see Dom anywhere.
Panic creeping up his spine, he tried to remind himself that it was only a dream, that his body was just an expression of his own thoughts and he could just as easily wish away the injuries, the pain-- They hadn’t been earned in the dream, they’d been brought in, and they could be banished just as easily.
The projection took a step towards him, and Arthur felt blind panic surge up to engulf him before he had a chance to try and fight it back, and his unbroken arm reached for the gun holstered at his side-- His backup plan, in case he hadn’t been able to make it out of Dom’s maze or there was a problem.
This was definitely a problem.
Muzzle up against his temple, and he squeezed the trigger frantically. There was only a split-second more of awareness, in which he saw the projection reaching out towards him with hands smeared in red--
Then he sat up gasping, every nerve in his body screaming shrilly. Dom was still sleeping, reclining on the couch next to him. Arthur lunged forward without bothering to unhook himself from the machine, fingers scrabbling at Dom’s sleeve for purchase before he yanked him hard, rolling him off the edge of the seat. He came awake halfway through the fall, limbs flailing, and barely managed to catch himself before he hit the carpeted floor.
“Arthur-- What--” His eyes were wide, startled, and it took him a second to focus on Arthur’s face. “What happened? Where were you?”
Arthur was kneeling on the floor, still connected to the PASIV by the line in his wrist, his arm in its case bent across his chest, and he realized his heart was racing as he spoke, his breath coming in harsh pants, “Saw the guy that got me.”
He didn’t need to explain. Comprehension dawned on Dom’s face, and he reached out to grab Arthur’s uninjured arm, squeezing his shoulder.
“It wasn’t real. It was only a projection in a dream.” His eyes dropped down to Arthur’s pocket. “Your totem.”
“Right--” Arthur’s voice was shaky, but his hand was steady as he fished for the red die, let it slip from his fingers onto the carpet. It didn’t roll as well on the soft surface and ended up propped on its edge. Arthur bit down the panic that came from another instant of not knowing, and picked it up again, shifting around to toss it onto the wooden seat of the chair he’d all but thrown himself out of.
It came up five twice in a row, and Arthur’s heart stopped trying to pound its way out of his chest as he threw it a third time. Five.
“You okay?” Dom asked, and Arthur looked back around at him. He was rolling up the IV line, but his eyes were fixed solely on Arthur.
“I’m okay,” Arthur said, settling back on his heels, trying to return his breathing to a normal rhythm, “I just panicked. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Dom tucked the tubing into the PASIV case. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
It occurred to Arthur, briefly, to keep this private, but that wasn’t how things went with Dom, and he took a deep breath. “I went into the dream, and my body was still injured, like when I first woke up in the hospital--”
“Stop,” Dom said, and Arthur looked up at him, frowning. “That’s not the beginning I meant. Tell me what happened before we found you.”
“I--” Arthur hesitated, then got clumsily to his feet, supporting himself with his uninjured arm braced against the chair. Dom’s hand moved to support his elbow, and Arthur met his gaze briefly, “I don’t know what there is to tell. Derickson’s people must have gotten word that we were attempting an extraction, and some of his people managed to follow me back from questioning his valet and grabbed me.” He shrugged, “They hit me in the head pretty hard. A lot of it was a blur.”
“But you saw who it was well enough to make a projection of them,” Dom said. “And whoever it was rattled you-- Rattled you, Arthur.” He sighed, and the frown line between his eyebrows deepened slightly, “You don’t scare easily.”
“I’m not scared,” Arthur said blankly, “It just startled me.”
“Then why did you wake me up? Why did you panic?”
The question made Arthur cross his arms (awkward around the cast) uncomfortably, and he shrugged, “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll handle it on my own.”
“No-- Don’t. That’s not what I’m saying.” Dom breathed out hard, and closed the lid of the PASIV firmly. “I shouldn’t have let you put yourself in harm’s way.”
“That’s my job, don’t be stupid,” Arthur shrugged, “If it wasn’t me, it could have been you, or someone else on the team. I can handle it better than them.”
“You’re handling it well enough to wake up in a panic,” Dom said, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t think you’re okay.”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
That night, the nightmares returned, and this time they had faces.
-----
Arthur didn’t dare to try sharing another dream with Dom and instead spent the time researching, planning, drawing up blueprints, and generally distracting himself from the memory of having his defenses overwhelmed, however transiently. Dom had begun work on assembling a team while Arthur did the desk work. Their sources had said Eames was busy with some high-profile case Saito had thrown his way, but a few days after they’d sent out feelers asking about him he showed up at the door to the rented office they were using as headquarters and asked to be on the team.
“Your jobs are always more interesting,” he’d explained.
Dom had tried to contact Ariadne, but she was apparently somewhere in Switzerland working with the inventor of the PASIV technology, and couldn’t risk another illegal job. She sent a very nice note explaining the situation, along with a get-well-soon card for Arthur (though how she’d found out he’d been injured, Arthur couldn’t guess, though Eames had looked smug.) They made a few other inquiries, but Dom finally decided that they would almost certainly be able to handle the preparation themselves and didn’t need an architect.
The job wasn’t complex enough to require a dedicated chemist, though Yusuf was in the area and stopped by to personally deliver the Somnacin that Dom ordered from him. Arthur took him aside, after they’d all had a little time to catch up, and asked him if there was any way to chemically suppress invasive projections.
“You’re the second man to ask me that, Arthur, and I’ll tell you what I told Dom,” Yusuf said, “Any sort of suppression would be tantamount to wrapping up the entirety of your subconscious in chains. It’s simply not feasible.”
So Eames and Dom worked in the dreams, while Arthur stayed strictly on the outside. A few times Dom offered him the opportunity, but Arthur turned him down, explaining that he thought he’d have to get out of the cast before his subconscious body stopped showing injuries, and in any case someone needed to play technician.
Once the cast came off, his excuse got weaker, but Dom didn’t press him.
Eames wasn’t as understanding, and kept asking him when he was going to stop lazing around and pull his weight.
“I’m doing plenty, thanks,” Arthur responded, usually followed by a comprehensive list of the hundred little things that wouldn’t have gotten done without his input, but of course Eames wasn’t actually looking for facts, he was just being irritating.
The arrangement wasn’t going to last in the long term, of course, and eventually Eames wasn’t around when Dom needed someone else in the dream with him, and he turned to Arthur again.
“It’s a different setting, we shouldn’t be separated this time,” Dom said, “If there’s... an issue, I’ll be able to help you deal with it.”
Arthur just nodded and rolled up his sleeve.
The injuries weren’t as debilitating as they’d been the first time, but Arthur was still unprepared for that first stab of pain as he became aware of himself and the dream. He managed to take in his surroundings-- a balcony, decorated for a lavish party, overlooking a picturesque city-- before the edges of his vision went white and he sank to his knees.
“Arthur--?” Dom’s voice was very close, and Arthur sensed him drop down beside him, a hand coming to rest gingerly on his back, “Arthur-- Fuck you’re bleeding--”
As the shock of sudden pain started to fade and adrenaline and endorphins started to flood in and counteract it, Arthur forced himself to take a deeper breath, “Fine, just-- need a second--”
His ribs didn’t crack when his lungs expanded, and he started to take inventory, insulating himself from the agony with a clean list of damages. His nose was bleeding, as it had been for most of his time in captivity (apparently punching someone in the face was as creative as most of the goons could get,) and he could feel lacerations on his arms and chest, red soaking into the sleeves of his dress shirt. His wrists and ankles ached from having been bound, his arm was useless again at his side, and the bruises were too numerous to count. In all likelihood, he was bleeding internally, but he wouldn’t be in the dream long enough for that to really start affecting him, thankfully.
Dom’s touch was warm and solid on his back, and when Arthur reached out blindly, he found Dom’s other hand reaching out to steady him.
“Arthur--” Dom sounded positively tormented, and Arthur forced himself to look up.
“Startled me--” he managed, then spat the blood flowing from his nose into his mouth onto the concrete by his knees, “Sorry, I-- I still can’t get over this. I don’t think I can be of much use to you.”
“No-- Don’t--” If anything, Dom looked more pained, and Arthur squeezed his hand. “I shouldn’t have let you handle the research for that job by yourself, it was way too dangerous.”
“It’s my job,” Arthur snapped, sick of this argument already, “I accepted the risks when I signed on with you, Cobb.”
“I don’t pay you to get tortured in reality.”
“Can we please not talk about this right now?!” Arthur said, “I can try to go on, or we can stop now-- I don’t want to sit here and listen to you lecture me until I bleed to death!”
Dom looked guilty for a second, and then grabbed his gun out of its holster. The familiar cold of the barrel against Arthur’s skin was barely tangible through the chorus of other pains, and then there was a loud bang and nothing except reality.
-----
He asked Eames if there was any way to forge away injuries in a dream, and the look he got was far more calculating than Yusuf’s.
“Yes,” Eames said, “But you’ll still feel them. They won’t be visible, they won’t bleed, but if they’re hurting you, you’ll have to hide that yourself.”
“Good enough.” Arthur said, “Show me how.”
Forgery took imagination and Arthur had failed at most previous attempts, but it was easier to imagine himself whole than someone completely unique. The marks he could see faded as he concentrated on them, though he could still feel their sting, and after a moment he glanced up at Eames, who nodded curtly.
“You look healed,” he said, “Does Cobb know about this?”
“He knows about the injuries,” Arthur said, checking his watch to see whether it was worth it to give himself an early kick.
“But not that you’re trying to hide them?”
Arthur hesitated slightly, then sighed. “No.”
-----
Arthur managed to fake his way through the next practice run Dom asked him to come along on. He hid his pain whenever he had to take a step, fought back the urge to yelp when someone grabbed his arm.
Eames noticed, and watched Arthur with a calculating look as he struggled.
The ruse was rewarded with Dom’s fleeting smile when the timer ran down and the three of them awoke, and Arthur managed to pull it off again twice more before things went sour.
It was probably complacency that triggered it. Arthur had started to grow over-confident in his ability to hide the extent of his injuries and continued pain in-dream. Dom hadn’t caught on, and didn’t seem likely to notice, and Eames-- Well, Eames was mum on the subject, but he hadn’t appeared to have told Dom anything either.
Only, then Arthur found himself surrounded by projections he recognized as if from a feverish hallucination-- Men who closed in and grabbed at him and the others. Arthur could hear Dom shouting something through the renewed terror bursting through the hastily constructed dams he’d been trying to use to hold it back, hear Eames cursing violently and the sound of gunfire.
The forgery was impossible to maintain, and Arthur felt himself falling apart completely.
Then he woke up.
Eames was already ripping the needle from his skin, cursing in a ceaseless stream, and the second Dom stirred he lunged, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him upright.
Arthur went for the gun he wasn’t wearing, his fingers grasping at the empty air near his hip, but before he could get to his feet to defend Dom, Eames was shouting, a finger jabbing into Dom’s face.
“He is too much of a risk to have in the dreams! You either fix him properly or get him the fuck out of here-- He’s obviously incapable of handling this himself.”
It sounded like the end of an argument, not the beginning, and Arthur’s hopes that Eames had been discreet evaporated. Eames’ fist tightened on Dom’s shirt for a second, and then he released him, fixing Arthur with a furious glare for a second before going toward the door.
A second passed before Arthur could make himself move, and then he lurched forward to touch Dom’s shoulder lightly. The other man started, turning to look at Arthur with a guarded expression.
“We need to talk.”
-----
“This is something I simply have to take care of myself,” Arthur said twenty minutes after Eames had slammed the door behind him and Dom had poured himself a drink. He was standing in front of Dom’s desk in his home. Dom had made the drive white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and hadn’t spoken yet, only come inside after gesturing for Arthur to follow and flung himself down with a drink in hand.
“You’re not handling it, that’s the problem.”
“I just need more time to perfect my control of it.” Arthur tried to sound patient, reasonable, but the sight of Dom’s eyes fixed so steadily on him from across the desk was unsettling, and he crossed his arms, glancing away, “I had it completely taken care of for a few dreams. I just need to figure out what’s triggering the projections to--”
Dom’s glass hit the wood of the desk with a loud bang, and Arthur fell silent, looking back to see his fingers tight around the glass.
“That isn’t handling, that’s suppressing. You know what happened last time an extractor tried to suppress a trauma.” Mal’s name hung unspoken between them like a curse. “It’s not going to end well, and you’re going to be completely incapacitated.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Arthur demeaned, barely keeping his voice below a harsh shout, “Go to therapy? What do I tell them-- I’m having nightmares?”
“Yes-- No-- I don’t fucking know, Arthur!” Dom stood, his chair hitting the file cabinet behind it hard, “You could try telling me there’s something wrong instead of trying to hide it from me! Do you think I’d-- I’d cut you loose if you couldn’t-- If there was a problem?”
Arthur didn’t. “You should. You can’t let personal feelings get in the way of your job--”
“Well your damn job is to be the man I trust, Arthur! If I can’t do that, I don’t have any real options!” Dom snatched up the glass, draining it before letting it fall back to the desk and sighing sharply, “You have to let me help you with this. If it makes you feel better to say I’m doing it because I’m such a fucking professional I don’t want to lose an ‘asset’, fine. I don’t care what you tell yourself as long as you let me help.”
Arthur stood still for a moment, staring down at the glass.
“It wouldn’t help to tell you,” he said finally, and he saw Dom’s shoulder’s sag, “There’s nothing you can do to change what happened.” His hand moved, automatically, to touch the arm that had been broken, his longest-lasting physical reminder.
“You won’t even let me try?” Dom asked, softly, and Arthur looked up to see him leaning with both hand’t braced on the edge of the desk, “I don’t want to lose you to this. It was my fault you got hurt, but I can’t--” He stopped short of what he wanted to say, and Arthur was glad he could still feign ignorance.
“I’m sorry, Dom.” Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, “But Eames is right. I’m not safe to dream with. I’m too unstable, and until I can get control of-- Of myself and of those projections, I can’t... expose the team to that. It’s too much of a danger.”
The silence settled like a layer of ice, numbing Arthur from the outside in, and he forced himself to freeze the reluctance and the pain of seeing Dom shaking. It was useless to try and argue with simple fact.
“Don’t I even get a two week’s notice?” Dom asked after too long for mere thought, and his voice was tight, his face still turned towards the desk.
“No,” Arthur said.
“Will you come back?”
“I’ll try to be able to work again as soon as possible--”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Dom fixed him with that gaze again, and Arthur had to fight to keep the ice from cracking.
“Then I don’t think I can answer you, Cobb.” Every movement was heavy and slow, and Arthur had to think to put his body into motion, walking towards the front door. He heard Dom sit, the clink of glass-on-glass as he poured.
Arthur steeled himself against the sunshine outside, and walked blindly away from Dom’s house.