Inception comment fic (2/2): The House That Cobb Built
Here's my second most recent commentfic, originally posted here. Again, this was beta read by the wonderful anatsuno.
Title: The House That Cobb Built [DW] [AO3]
Spoilers: Inception, obvs.
Warnings: This fic does not have anything in it that requires a warning.
Summary: The first and last time Eames was invited to the Cobb's. Arthur/Eames, Cobb, Philippa, James, OCs.
This story can be found translated into Russian here!
*
As soon as Dom opened the front door and found Arthur standing there in a dark brown three-piece suit with his hair carefully slicked back, he felt guilty. Had they lived in a perfect world, Mal would have been alive and none of this would have been happening. Or had they lived in a moderately excellent world (where people's wives still jumped to their deaths from hotel room windows, but everything else was, for the most part, okay), Dom would have told Arthur exactly what he needed, and Arthur would have happily come over in jeans and a t-shirt. As it was, they lived in a world that was dark and miserable and possibly actually a dream, so Dom had thought a bit of subterfuge was necessary. Ergo, Arthur in a suit.
(Additionally, he wasn't sure if Arthur even owned a pair of jeans; Arthur's version of casual wear usually involved button downs, paired with sweaters or sweatervests in the case of cooler weather. In the five years he'd known the man, the closest Dom had ever seen Arthur dress like a normal person was the time he'd been shot in Liaoning and he'd had to borrow a pair of Mal's jeans and one of Dom's undershirts, and then when he'd been waiting for them outside the pharmacy the police had tried to pick him up for soliciting. They had made a silent pact to never talk about Liaoning. Except for Mal; she had thought it was hilarious, and she'd had fun telling the story at parties, and Arthur still blamed her (but, you know, sadly) for certain people (Eames, his parents, the president of Liberia) not respecting him.)
Once Dom got Arthur inside and explained the sitution, Arthur stared at him like he had just declared himself king of California.
"I thought I was coming here for a job," Arthur said slowly, setting his man bag on the kitchen island.
"You are," Dom replied. He busied himself making coffee so he wouldn't have to see the fury in Arthur's eyes. Unfortunately, by avoiding Arthur's eyes, he was able to notice Arthur's bag matched his shoes, which caused Dom pain in an entirely different way. "A very, very important job."
"I came here from Iceland," Arthur said. "I had to change flights twice. It took me twelve hours to get here!"
"I need you," said Dom sincerely, pushing a mug into Arthur's hands.
"Twelve hours," Arthur repeated. He looked stunned. "You're telling me I came all the way from Iceland to babysit your kids while you-- while you do what, exactly?"
"An old friend of mine, Eric Nichols, is working on a mark I had when I first started extractions," Dom explained. "He's coming here with his team so I can give them the files and walk them through what Mal and I did."
"Nichols, your partner when you were in the NSA?" Arthur asked sharply.
Of course Arthur knew who Nichols was; Arthur knew almost everything. Sure, he didn't know how to cook anything other than ramen noodles or how to change his ringtone or how to uncover that Fischer's mind was militarized, but if you had ever done something that was later documented somewhere, Arthur was your man. While on the inception job, Ariadne had asked Dom, very seriously, if Arthur was secretly Judi Dench's son. It had taken Dom forever to realize Ariadne had meant M from James Bond and not actually Judi Dench, but the point was, Arthur was a robot disguised as a skinny kid.
"Do you think that's wise, Cobb, bringing him here?"
Dom nodded. "We bought this house when Nichols and I were still partners; there's no point in meeting him somewhere else if he already knows where I live. And," he added, having already thought this through days ago, "I can keep the kids nearby."
"You mean I can keep the kids nearby," Arthur said frostily.
Dom clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew I could count on you."
Arthur looked down at his coffee. "Do you trust his team?" he asked, in that way that Dom knew meant Arthur thought he was too careless.
"I've worked with Sanders, the architect, before, and you already know their forger."
Arthur's head snapped up. "Eames is coming here?" he demanded, but already he was running his hand down his waistcoat and straightening his shirt sleeves, as if being seen ever-so-slightly rumpled after a twelve-hour flight across two continents would ruin him in the eyes of Eames forever. If Eames hadn't been scared away by the mobster hair or the scowling or his tendency to punch people in the throat, a few creases weren't going to send him running for the hills. Dom would have said as much, except for, well, the throat-punching.
However, he did say, pointedly, "Are you saying you don't trust Eames?" knowing he had won this round the minute Eames's name had been mentioned. Arthur's mouth flattened into a thin line, but he didn't try to argue any more, and Dom called the kids in to say hi to their Uncle Arthur.
"Uncle Arthur," Philippa yelled, thrusting her latest toy in Arthur's face, "look at my new Barbie!"
James latched onto Arthur's legs and beamed up at him. With a pained sigh, Arthur took Philippa's Barbie from her hands and inspected it grimly. "Philippa, honey, we really need to have a discussion about accessories. Sometimes less is more."
"I owe you one," Dom said.
Arthur glared at him. "I'm so glad I got shot in Afghanistan so one day I could be here to babysit your children while you make under-handed deals with former government agents."
He took both the kids' hands and, in a dignified flounce only he could pull off, marched them down the hall to the rec room. Pleased, Dom started another pot of coffee for his upcoming guests.
*
The kids and Arthur were still safely hidden away by the time Nichols, Sanders, and Eames arrived. It was the first time Dom had seen Eames since the inception on Fischer, but he knew Arthur had worked with him twice since then, and Arthur had said Eames was in high demand now that militarization of the subconscious was becoming more and more common. Either way, Eames didn't look like someone who was making bank; far from Nichols' and Sanders' fitted suits, Eames was wearing jeans, a t-shirt that looked like he'd gotten it for free from a radio station give away, and a neon orange trucker hat. Arthur was going to have a shit fit.
"Good to see you still remember how to get here," Dom told Nichols, inviting them all in.
Last week, it had been awkward when Nichols had cornered Dom in the pastry section of Costco and said, "Look, I'm really sorry for believing you pushed Mal out of a six-story window, even though afterwards you did flee the country like Roman Polanski, but I'm working on a job with Demitrias Global, and..."
Now, though, Nichols chuckled, pulling Dom into a brief hug. "Of course I do," he said cheerfully. "Used to be, everyone knew Dominic Cobb always threw the best Superbowl parties."
"So this is the Cobb family home then?" Eames asked no one in particular, studying the pictures on the walls.
"The place looks the same," Nichols was murmuring, as Dom reached over to shake Sanders' hand.
Dom tried to push everyone toward his office, but Eames seemed enraptured by the photographs and stood his ground. He lingered over one from December 2008 (the last Christmas before Dom had incepted Mal and made the world into a sad, lonely place where he was was pushed, nay, forced into tricking his point man into coming from Iceland to babysit) and pursed his lips. "Cobb, I have three very important questions. One, why is Arthur in your family photo. Two, is he, in fact, wearing a reindeer jumper. And three, why is he wearing a yarmulke."
"Please don't touch anything," Dom said.
Eames gave him a look and then, to Dom's chagrin, began pushing all the frames so they were hanging lopsidedly. Dom grabbed his arm and wrestled him down the hall to the office.
"Okay, okay," Eames said, shaking him off, "I get it. Let's keep our hands to ourselves."
Nichols was eyeing Eames in a way that said he was wondering what he'd gotten himself into.
"Eames really is the best," Dom explained, gesturing at him with one hand. "He may have the emotional maturity of an eight year-old and the anti-social behaviour of a serial killer, but you won't regret hiring him."
"I resent that," Eames protested, taking a seat and propping his feet up on Dom's desk. "I'm very mature."
At that, Dom headed back to the kitchen to get the coffee. He trusted Nichols and Sanders wouldn't attempt to pry open his file cabinet (the key was in his pocket), or hack into his computer (password: whymalwhy), or tip-toe down the hall and attempt to steal his children. Attempt, of course, not succeed: Arthur would probably kill the two of them with nothing more than a Barbie and a Transformer, and still have the energy afterwards to complain Dom was ruining his life. An accusation which was ridiculous, of course, because Dom didn't ruin people's lives. He had made Arthur's life better by rescuing him from the soul-sucking black hole that was medical school. Arthur hadn't really wanted to be a doctor, just like Mal hadn't really wanted to stay in Limbo. Dom liked helping people, even if all he got in return was heartbreak.
Of course, Eames could probably open Dom's file cabinet with a paperclip, or figure out Dom's incredibly secure password, or even get past Arthur (it would be difficult, of course, but Dom had once been punched by Eames and had blacked out for a solid twenty minutes, and Dom was at least a foot taller and considerably heavier than either of them (okay, maybe not a foot, but Arthur still looked like a teenager and Eames was a midget, and Mal, may she rest in peace, used to say Dom was a redwood of a man with the deep, soulful eyes of a poet)) and turn his innocent little angels into scruffy, foul-mouthed hooligans. Concerned, Dom hurried back to his office.
"And that's why the lovely departed Mrs Cobb would never allow me in her home," Eames was saying when Dom burst through the door.
Sanders and Nichols looked aghast.
"Ah, coffee," Eames said, noticing Dom. "Wonderful."
Dom passed out the mugs from his tray and pulled another chair up to his desk. Eames gave him a smile that was probably meant to be innocent but came out disgusting, and Dom pointedly picked up his laptop and sat it in his lap.
"I hope Eames hasn't been frightening you with his lies," said Dom, thinking of all the horrible blackmail Eames had on him, such as the Fischer job, or the time he had accidentally shot the client instead of the mark, or his paralyzing fear of chickens. There was a reason he didn't keep people around who knew him very well now, other than Arthur; they either humiliated you in front of people you were working with, or they invaded your dreams and forced you to deal with your overbearing guilt over your wife's death. No one believed in privacy anymore.
Eames smirked. "No, only with the truth. By the way," he asked, with an obviously forced nonchalance, "who's watching the Cobblets?"
"Arthur," Dom replied.
"Really?" Eames glanced around, trying and failing to look disinterested. "I'd be worried that stick-in-the-mud was making them alphabetize their book collection, or organize their toybox, or--"
"He's in the rec room," Dom interrupted, knowing what Eames pointedly wasn't asking.
Eames jumped up. "Cheers," he called, already halfway out the door. Dom rolled his eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Nichols asked. "Did he just leave during our debriefing?"
"Eames'll catch up," Dom replied.
*
In 2001, back before Dom had incepted Mal, when the world had been full of sunshine and rainbows, Dom had been hired by the CIA to do an extraction on a Central American general who may or may not have been planning a coup in his country. Dom had only recently left the NSA, because his dad was sick and he and Mal were thinking about starting a family, and the NSA didn't exactly hire agents part time; in solidarity, Mal had also left her job with the CIA. It was Mal who had made it known to her bosses she wouldn't mind consulting now and again, probably knowing that as much as they might enjoy it, they couldn't spend twenty-four hours a day trying to make a baby. Or waiting for Dom's dad to die. Whichever came first.
The CIA had informed Dom that they would overlook the fact he'd "forgotten" to return his PASIV to the NSA when he'd resigned in return for working for them as a consultant.
So he and Mal, still not pregnant despite many, many, many, many attempts, had gone off to this unnamed Central American country and performed a highly dangerous extraction on an equally highly dangerous man. Militarization wasn't very common back then, but it was still a difficult job. Dom was used to extractions with only two people (Nichols and himself), following NSA protocol, but as a CIA agent Mal was used to three, and neither of them were used to extracting together. They had only escaped by the skin of their teeth.
(Dom's dad, his only remaining family outside of Mal, had died while they were on the job, which just went to show how Dom's life was unceasing anguish and despair.)
They had worked three more jobs like this before Mal had put her elegant foot down and insisted on another team member. Specifically, she had demanded a point man, and one of her contacts in the DoD had given her the name of the perfect person for the job. Then she had put Dom on a plane to Chicago, where he'd met a twenty-five year-old first year med student who had been given a medical discharge from the army after a very brief tour in Afghanistan. His name was David Arthur Levi, and the first thing he had said to Dom was, "I feel bad for the homeless guy you stole those shoes from."
Anyway, now Mal was gone, David was Arthur, Nichols was a freelance extractor, and Dom's dream house was full of criminals. The Central American general was now a VP of a multinational corporation, and another company, Demetrias Global, had hired Nichols to extract from him.
"He's not militarized," Dom explained to Nichols. "Still, I'd be willing to bet he's a sociopath; his projections were brutal."
"He might not have been militarized then, but he most certainly is now," Nichols suggested.
Sanders leaned forward. "We need to know what we're getting into. DG's offering a lot of money for this, so they must know something we don't."
Dom took the file out of his cabinet and walked them through the the extraction on the then-general's, which had included an enormous fairytale-style castle and a projection of a very evil stepmother who kept trying to poison Mal, up until Mal had choked her on her own apple. Because Mal had been beautiful and graceful in every way and had made birds sing and flowers bloom, she had also killed beautifully. Dom hadn't been at all perturbed at seeing an evil old witch choking to death. But he hadn't been happy when a tower had fallen on him and squashed him like a bug. Mal had finished the extraction alone after that.
At one point during his explanation, Dom looked up to find Arthur watching them. His face was blank in a way that Dom knew meant he was cataloging everything about Nichols for later, storing it away in that great big file cabinet in his brain. However, Dom was relieved to see he'd stripped out of his suit and was wearing just the trousers and button down, with the sleeves rolled up; his feet were bare. Arthur was much less likely to attack when he wasn't wearing socks.
When he caught Dom looking, he said, "Cobb, you're out of Pepsi."
Dom frowned. "I just bought that pack yesterday. Did you drink all of it already?" Arthur shrugged. "One day you will be old, and you will get diabetes."
"You'll be well on your way to your second heart attack by then, old man," Arthur said smugly, and Sanders looked down at her coffee (her third cup and counting) and winced.
"Where's Eames?" Dom asked in revenge.
Arthur looked contrite. He wiped his palms on his pants, a sure sign he was embarrassed about something. "He's showing the kids his tattoos."
Dom sighed. "See, this is why my in-laws don't like me," he said.
As soon as Arthur left the room, Nichols turned to Dom and demanded, sounding angry, "Why does your babysitter look like he stepped out of a J.Crew catalogue? How does he know this Eames guy -- who, by the way, is a freak. What has happened to your life, Dom?"
"Well, first I was accused of murder, and it all went downhill from there," Dom replied.
*
An hour later, they tried to kill him.
It was the perfect set up; Dom truly had no idea. Maybe it was because Dom was out of practice, not having worked for nearly six months; maybe it was because he had known Nichols back when Dom was fresh-faced and naive (and the dreamiest guy who'd ever worked for a secret American intelligence agency), when he had eagerly signed up to test a new government dreamsharing device without considering all the consequences. Or maybe it was because Dom was just such a darn nice guy. Either way, he was fully unprepared when it happened.
Dom had just finished giving them the walk-through of his extraction and all the information he had on the mark, when Sanders knocked the file off the desk. It tumbled to the floor, scattering the papers he'd once made Arthur meticulously organize against his will.
"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, looking flustered.
Dom started to reach for it, but suddenly he remembered something he'd left out of his report. "Hey," he began, straightening back up.
Sanders was standing over him with her hand in the air, a hypodermic needle clenched in her fist.
Dom looked at her. She looked at him. In the three seconds they gazed at each other, a guilty expression slowly crossed over her face.
That was when Dom grabbed his closed laptop off the desk and slammed it into her head with as much force as he could muster, which was a lot, because Dom was strong and tall and blond like a Viking. She collapsed at the same time Nichols jumped to his feet, pulling a gun out of nowhere, and Dom swung the laptop into his hand. The gun went sailing across the room and Dom drove the heel of his shoe into the side of Nichol's kneecap, hard, hearing a sickening crunch as it twisted. With a cry that sounded more surprised than pained, Nichols fell; Dom punched him once in the nose, and then he snatched up the laptop again and knocked Nichols unconscious.
Dom was left standing in the middle of his office in complete chaos. "Arthur," he called over his shoulder. "Arthur, where are you?"
There was no answer.
He searched vainly for Nichol's gun, but he couldn't find it. Next, he quickly patted down Sanders, and when he didn't find a gun, he crushed her syringe under his heel. The colour of whatever it was they were going to inject him with wasn't right for Somnacin, so they probably weren't here to extract from him. The only other option was they were here to kill him. Being betrayed by his oldest friend was something that could only happen to Dom. Everything was terrible.
Making sure James and Philippa were safe was his next goal. He desperately hoped Arthur's silence simply meant he hadn't heard anything, and not that assassins had been sent to take him and the kids out before Dom was dealt with. Normally, Dom wouldn't worry about assassins getting the better of Arthur, because Arthur was basically a ninja, but with Eames there to distract him -- who knew. When Eames was around, Arthur always seemed overly (well, more) concerned about his appearance and verbally slaughtering Eames in any argument, and Dom would have bet Arthur and Eames were currently involved in one of their usual bickering slash thinly-veiled flirting matches and had forgotten the rest of the world existed.
He closed the door to the office and locked it, and then he shoved a chair under the doorknob for good measure. Then he crept down the hall to the rec room. The door was ajar, and he silently slid inside.
The first thing Dom looked for were the kids, and he spotted them immediately; James was asleep and drooling on the couch, and Philippa was sitting on the floor with Arthur and Eames, clapping her hands in glee. Dom had ten seconds to take in the fact that not only were Eames and Arthur kissing in the middle of Philippa's princess tea party, but Arthur was also wearing Eames's godawful trucker hat. When Arthur noticed him, he jerked back, looking startled. "Cobb," he started, "I swear, I was going to tell you--"
"I know," said Dom, "you're here, you're queer, I'm used to it. Now hand me a gun. Nichols and Sanders are trying to kill me."
Dom very pointedly did not look at Eames's hands still resting on Arthur's waist; he and Arthur were going to have words later about Arthur doing that -- doing sexual things with Eames in front of his precious babies, who were far too young to be subjected to anything involving touching or kissing or pee-pees. As a parent who kept up with the latest trends (now that he was back from his two year whirl-wind adventure of hitting rock bottom), Dom made sure to keep the kids away from anything sexually explicit, like Sesame Street.
He kept his attention focused, instead, on Arthur's very annoyed face, which did look much less intimidating when Arthur was wearing a neon orange cap. "You said you trusted them," Arthur said.
"I know, you were right, I'm sorry," Dom snapped. They didn't have time to argue about this. He held out a hand and wiggled his fingers. "Arthur! Gun!"
"I only brought the one," Arthur said sheepishly. But he jumped to his feet, and he took his shoulder holster out of the pile of clothes he had left folded on the foosball table (and Dom was not thinking about that). He handed over his Glock 17 to Dom. After that, he hesitated, and he glanced down at the floor at Philippa, who clearly had no idea what her daddy and uncle were fighting about.
Arthur crouched down to her level. "Sweetie, do you have anything Uncle Arthur can use to seriously injure some very, very bad people who want to hurt Daddy?"
"No, she doesn't have anything!" Dom yelled. "Why would you think--?"
"My tea set has a knife," interrupted Philippa.
"She's very much Mal's daughter, isn't she," Eames said.
To Dom's surprise, Eames hiked up the left leg of his jeans to reveal an ankle holster. He pulled a 9mm out and passed it over to Arthur. Then he did the same to his right leg, but he kept that one for himself.
"How many guns do you have on you?" Arthur asked, sounding impressed.
"Seven," Eames replied with a leer. "I've also stashed a rucksack with grenades and guns in the master toilet."
Dom frowned. "Why?"
"Being a reasonably intelligent human being, I realized something was amiss when a former NSA agent contacted me and asked me to join him on a job for a mark you had previously extracted from," explained Eames. "So I took the liberty of bringing a small arsenal with me."
"Thanks for the warning," Dom snapped.
"We've been here for hours and you didn't think of telling me this?" Arthur demanded.
"Also, while you were with that lot in the office I rigged the entire house with C4," Eames continued.
Dom closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. But when he opened them, Eames was still standing there looking smug, and he was still suggesting they do the unthinkable and blow up the house Dom and Mal had bought for their family.
Arthur was gazing at Eames thoughtfully. "Excellent work, Mr Eames."
He had stars in his eyes. Dom resisted the urge to punch him in the throat, like Arthur had done to him so many times before.
"Thank you, darling," Eames replied. "I do live for your approval."
*
An interlude.
Arthur was in the middle of watching Philippa's Barbie funeral when Eames made an appearance. Now, Arthur was not and would never be a parent, but even he knew it was probably a bad sign when a little kid was throwing a funeral for her Barbie (attended, of course, by all the other Barbies, Kens, Skippers, and Kellys), in an obvious and creepy retelling of her own mother's funeral.
"And now Ken is crying," Philippa explained. "Uncle Arthur, you can be the police who come and take him to the police station."
Arthur remembered that from Mal's funeral, too. "I'm not really comfortable with this," he said.
Philippa's eyes shone with unshed tears. She sniffed dramatically. "You said you'd play with me."
Arthur sighed. He glanced around at all the dolls. "Which ones are the police?"
James handed Arthur a Ken and a Barbie; the Ken was wearing a sailor uniform, and the Barbie was a doctor.
"I see you've played this before," Arthur said to James, taking them.
When Philippa looked at him in expectation, he sighed again and said, in a falsetto, "Mr Ken, can you please come with us to the station?"
"Oh no, what have I done?" Philippa made Ken say.
She picked up another Ken doll, this one dressed in a black tux. "Ken, you monster!"
That was supposed to be him, Arthur realized with horror. Mal's death hadn't exactly brought out the best in everyone.
"Okay, it's time to play a different game," Arthur said loudly.
"But I was enjoying watching you play with dolls, sugar plum," said a new but familiar voice.
Standing in the doorway was Eames. Arthur mentally counted to five before turning to look at him directly. Naturally, Eames looked like a trainwreck, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and an orange cap, with several days' worth of scruff on his face and tobacco stains on his fingers. His ridiculous tattoos peeked out from under his sleeves. He was disgusting. Arthur most definitely did not want to climb him like a tree.
"Eames," Arthur greeted, coolly raising an eyebrow.
"Hello, gorgeous," said Eames. He leaned against the door frame and dragged his eyes across Arthur's body in a way that was filthy and highly inappropriate, considering there were children in the room. "Minding the Cobb sprogs, are we?"
"We're playing Barbies!" Philippa said happily.
Eames leered. "I'm imagining wee little Arthur in his little suit and his little--"
"She's recreating Mal's funeral," Arthur interrupted flatly.
"Oh dear Lord," Eames said, "how horribly creepy."
Without asking, Eames strode into the room and threw himself on the floor beside James, crossing his legs like Arthur's; James's eyes rounded with fear, and he crawled into Arthur's lap, leaving him and Eames sitting next to each other. Sighing -- he seemed to do that a lot around this family -- Arthur wrapped an arm around James, hoping he wasn't about to cry or something equally appalling.
Eames looked at Arthur and smiled, scooting over to take up the little bit of space James had left. The smile made his whole face crease and showed off the slight crookedness of his front teeth, but Arthur kind of, sort of liked it; all of Eames's imperfections -- and, boy, did he have a lot -- were as endearing as they were frustrating. On top of that he smelled infuriatingly good, and even his stupidly casual outfit couldn't hide how good he looked. Arthur raised his chin and looked away.
Since Cobb (the bastard) had slipped up and let Arthur know Eames was coming, Arthur was fully prepared for Eames's usual display of-- Eamesness. Arthur liked being prepared; he especially liked being prepared for Eames, because if he wasn't careful, Eames would leave him feeling young and stupid, Arthur's two least favourite feelings. Just like last week in Reykjavík, when he'd shown up out of nowhere and after dinner had cupped Arthur's face in his hands and-- or the time before in Dublin, when he'd slid an arm around Arthur's waist and-- or in New York, when they'd--
"It's okay," Arthur told James. "This is my... friend, Mr Eames."
Much to his surprise, Eames held out his hand to James. With a tentative smile, James shook it; his tiny little hand could only wrap around three of Eames's fingers. "Pleasure to meet you, James," Eames said sincerely, as Philippa giggled.
Arthur's heart did not melt. At all.
*
Somehow, Eames managed to convince Philippa to abandon her upsetting game of Barbie funeral and move onto a tea party. From the bookshelf she removed a big case full of plastic pink cups, cutlery, plates, and a big tea pot; it even had plastic, sparkling tea cakes. Philippa made a big production out of passing everything out.
"Pinkies up!" she declared, demonstrating with her own hand. "This is how you drink tea."
"This is exactly what England's like," Eames said dryly. Unlike Arthur, who, naturally, drank his tea with poise and grace, Eames couldn't uncurl his pinkie when he stuck it up in the air, and he couldn't fit a finger into the handle of the cup. It looked absurd.
Arthur couldn't help but laugh, even as he pulled a fake tea cake out of James's mouth. "I'm sure Cobb had this specially flown in from Harrods."
"This is the best tea I've ever had," Eames told Philippa, giving her a winning smile. She beamed up at him.
Arthur really preferred this over the traumatic game they were playing earlier. He'd never thought he'd be sitting on the floor of Cobb's rec room with Eames, pretending to drink tea from a My Pretty Princess cup; this wasn't the first time he'd been tricked into doing something for Cobb(organizing, shopping, and on one memorable occasion, jury duty), but he had to admit, this was kind of nice.
"What's with the ironic trucker hat?" Arthur asked. "Did you beat up a hipster?"
"It's not ironic," Eames countered. "I'm in disguise."
Arthur's eyebrows shot up. "As what?"
"An American."
"And this is how all Americans dress," Arthur stated, scowling.
Eames snorted. "Well, not you, obviously. You're special. But I'm sure Cobb buys his jeans at Walmart."
Arthur shook his head. "No -- Old Navy. He made me go and buy him a pair once. It was the worst experience of my life."
Philippa looked up at him with wide eyes.
"You heard me," he told her.
*
But back to the story.
Getting James and Philippa to safety was easier said than done. First, because Dom's neighbours believed he'd killed Mal (even though Dom was innocent. mostly.), even now after Saito had bribed the state of California to drop the charges, and therefore most of them didn't talk to him anymore; and second, because the kids both insisted on taking toys with them. James deliberated over which stuffed animal to take, and Philippa asked Arthur to choose which Barbie she should travel with, much to Arthur's obvious chagrin.
It wasn't like Dom could tell them he was taking them to a neighbour's house because otherwise they might die. Mostly he didn't know if James fully understood what "die" meant, plus Philippa might tell his mother-in-law. In the weeks leading up to her death, Mal had taken to ignoring the children, but a sane Mal would have murdered Dom for giving them the opportunity to realize their own human fragility. In a perfect world, they never would have been exposed to their mother's death, which had raised all sorts of uncomfortable questions Dom hadn't been able to answer. Had they lived in the semi-perfect world in which Mal was dead but everything else was fine, Dom might have been able to explain to them what it meant for their mother to go away and never come back. But in the horrible, maybe-dream that was their dark reality, Dom had made Arthur do it. Yet they were kids, and they were his angels, and they weren't supposed to realize that they themselves could die until they were at least in their twenties.
"I don't know which Barbie you should take," Arthur told Philippa, sounding exasperated. His mouth curled in a moue. "How about the one who was--" his eyes flickered to Dom "--the, uh, star of the game?"
"You want me to raise Barbie from the grave?" Philippa shrieked.
"No, of course not," Arthur replied slowly.
Eames looked up from where he was shoving James' stuffed polar bear, whose name was Mr Icy Pants, into his tiny backpack. "You don't find any of this odd?" he murmured to Dom.
Dom sent him a narrow-eyed frown. "What's weird about this?"
"Why don't you take this one?" Arthur asked Philippa, handing her a Barbie in a doctor's lab coat.
Philippa took it and nodded determinedly. "Thank you, Uncle Arthur.
"Daddy," she began, as Dom took the kids' hands and led them out of the rec room, safely behind Arthur and Eames, who both had their guns drawn, "when we get back, you need to help me with the funeral. Uncle Arthur and Mr Eames won't play it with me anymore."
"Sure, honey," Dom said, squeezing her hand.
"Seriously, have you ever thought about sending mini-Mal here to a therapist?" Eames asked.
Suddenly, shots came from the direction of the office, missing Dom's head by mere inches. The kids screamed and he ducked, pulling them down with him and through the intersection where two hallways connected. He launched himself to the left, in the direction of the master bedroom, putting the wall between them and the office. On the opposite side of the hall, which led to the kitchen, were Arthur and Eames; Eames was on one knee, taking shots from below, and Arthur was standing above him, firing.
"Shh," Dom told James and Philippa; James was crying because of the loud noises, and Philippa was clinging to Dom's neck so tightly he could barely breathe.
"Get behind me," Eames grunted to Arthur, as several shots whizzed past them, nicking the wall right by their faces. Pictures crashed to the floor, their glass frames shattering; Dom heard the distinct sound of a vase breaking. He hoped it was the one Mal's Aunt Georgette had given them for their tenth anniversary.
"Why?" Arthur demanded, even as Eames grabbed his arm and tugged him down to the floor.
"Because I'm bigger than you."
"Is this a joke about your penis?" Arthur asked, deadpan.
"Penis!" said James.
"Thanks, Arthur," Dom yelled. James sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on Dom's shoulder.
"'Penis' is not a dirty word. The human body is a natural--"
"Can we," Eames interrupted, shouting over the sounds of gunfire, "not do this now?"
There was a sudden lull in the shooting. Dom didn't know if Nichols and Sanders were reloading or planning something else or what, but he knew he needed to get the kids out now. He glanced over at the bedroom door; the master bedroom had french doors leading out into the backyard. It was his only chance of getting the kids out of the house safely, but the office also had windows facing the backyard, and there was a chance they could be spotted. He hoped Arthur remembered the layout of the house.
"Arthur," Dom called, starting to move toward the door, "I'm getting out. Keep them busy."
"We've got it," Arthur growled, his face tight. Eames reloaded his 9mm and gave Dom a short nod.
No shots followed Dom as he rushed the kids out the bedroom doors, through the backyard, and past the gate; he assumed Arthur and Eames were keeping Nichols and Sanders sufficiently occupied. He immediately headed six houses down the block, to a home owned by a couple who had just recently moved to the neighbourhood with their three children, in the hope none of the other neighbours had gotten to them yet and had alerted them to Dom's supposed crime.
After a knock, Ann Gillespie answered the door. "Hi, Dominic," she greeted warmly.
He smiled. "Hi, Ann. Could you do me a favour and watch Philippa and James for a few hours? We've had, um, a family emergency."
Ann's eyes drifted toward his house. "Are those gunshots?"
Dom's smile waned. "A car must have back-fired."
"Over and over?" she asked suspiciously.
Something that sounded like a boom erupted behind Dom, from the direction of his house. Eames and his goddamned grenades.
"Would you believe me," Dom asked, looking her directly in the eye, "if I told you I was involved in a very dangerous and very secret government program, the likes of which I can't explain to you for the sake of national security?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Then I would need to see some ID. My husband's in the FBI."
Dom deflated; things like this always worked in dreams.
"Please take the kids," he pleaded. "And please... don't call the police for at least another twenty minutes."
Smoke was billowing from the right wing of Dom's house when he returned, and there was a giant hole in the roof. It was well known that Eames' lust for things that explode was only rivaled by his hard-on for Arthur (although the one time Dom had said that out loud Arthur had bit his head off), and so Dom really shouldn't have been surprised that Eames was all too happy to use the grenades he'd secretly brought into Dom's home. That didn't stop him, however, from feeling sick and angry that his house -- the house he and Mal had bought to raise their family in -- was being blown to pieces.
When he got back inside, via the bedroom back door, they were still firing at each other. Arthur and Eames were still in the hallway junction, although they had traded their small 9mms for much larger artillery -- including the assault rifle Eames now had in his hands. How he had managed to sneak that past Nichols and Sanders, Dom didn't want to know. They had traded positions, with Arthur now kneeling on the floor and Eames standing above him with the rifle, and an open backpack, grenades and ammunition spilling out of it, sat at Arthur's feet.
Dom managed to get a few good shots in himself, blindly aiming in the direction of the office, and Nichols and Sanders stopped firing abruptly, again. Dom wondered if one of them had been hit.
"We went through a lot of trouble to get to you, Dom," called Nichols. "Be a sport and give yourself up."
"Who hired you?" Dom shouted back.
"Cobol, of course."
Arthur gave Dom a surprised look. "Cobol still wants us? I thought they gave up months ago."
"Actually," replied Nichols, "they only hired us to kill Dom. Your name never even came up. I don't even think they know who you are."
"Those bastards!" Arthur said.
"I thought we were friends, Nichols," Dom yelled, letting all his betrayal, confusion, and rage seep into his voice. "I've known you twenty years. You were my best man, for God's sake."
There was a long pause.
"I may have a gambling problem," Nichols called back. "Also, I really like cocaine."
Dom was taken aback. "So you're willing to kill me, your oldest friend, for drugs and poker?"
"Ponies, actually. I play the ponies."
"People still do that?" Arthur muttered. "What are we, in My Fair Lady?"
"That was a really gay reference," Eames said.
*
Eventually, the shooting started again, and Dom realized with a growing sense of horror that Nichols wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to stop, and Dom was going to have to kill him. As a general rule, Dom didn't kill people in real life; he had, of course, in the line of duty, or that one time in Canada when that guy had stolen his bagel. But for the most part, Dom tried to leave as small a body trail as he could, and he had persuaded Arthur to do the same. To be fair, Arthur pretty much always did what Dom told him to, even as he bitched about it. (Eames, Dom was certain, killed people all the time; not only did he suffer from a distinct lack of empathy (and Dom was not bitter about all the times Eames had called him a psychopath), he also didn't seem to go anywhere without at least three guns on his person at all times. He must have been horrible to fly with.)
So Dom was going to have to kill Eric Nichols, his oldest friend, and Sanders, whom he barely knew, because this was exactly the kind of thing that happened to him.
"Is there a door to the outside in the office?" Eames asked Dom as he shoved another magazine into his rifle.
Dom shook his head, grimacing as a bullet went right past his cheek. "No, but there's a window."
"But we have the door, yeah?"
"Yeah," Arthur replied. "There's a door in the kitchen leading to the right side of the backyard, and one in the master bedroom leading to the left side."
"Cobb," Eames said very seriously, "we need to blow up your house."
"No," Dom insisted.
"Yes," Eames replied.
"No."
"Either way," Arthur cut in, not looking away from his target, "we need to get out of here. Eventually, we're going to run out of bullets. They might also call in reinforcements."
Eames sighed loudly through his nose. "If we blow up the house, we can take Nichols and Sanders with it. Then you won't have to worry about them finding you or the little ones."
"He does have a point," Arthur said.
Dom scowled at him. "As the official president of the Eames fanclub, you don't get to have a say in this."
"Actually, I'd say that sleeping with Eames would make me the least likely person to agree with him," Arthur replied, and Eames made a face at him even as he zipped up the backpack and shrugged it on.
While Dom fired at what he hoped was Nichol's head behind the door frame, Eames threw himself across the hallway, narrowly avoiding a returning shot. He slammed onto the floor loudly, grunting in pain. Then Arthur did a very complicated backflip over the line of bullets and gracefully landed next to Dom.
"Bloody hell," said Eames, in a tone that said he was going to do horrible, disgusting things to Arthur later after witnessing that display of agility.
"Show off," said Dom, hating all young people. Arthur smirked at him.
Eames turned to Dom, his face grave again. "It's just a house, Cobb."
"Okay, I'm thinking," Dom interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Let me think!"
This was the house he and Mal had bought to raise their family in. James and Philippa had lived here their whole lives. This was where he and Mal had made love countless times, this was where they'd had parties and holidays and lazy Sunday mornings, this was where they had gone into Limbo for the first time, this was where Mal had sat at the table playing with knives, this was where Mal had chased Arthur around the house with said knives while screaming about how Arthur was obviously a projection because no real person would match their shoes and belt to their man bag, this was where Dom had tackled Mal after she'd cut Arthur with said knives because Arthur had said, "It's not a man bag, it's a satchel," this--
"Give me the damn detonator," Dom ordered, holding out his hand.
Eames grinned at him and then tossed a grenade in the direction of the office.
As the house crumbled beneath the flames, Dom and Eames stood several houses away, out of sight from the neighbours, who all seemed to be coming out to watch what was happening. Arthur, as someone people in the neighbourhood recognized, possibly because they thought Dom had murdered Mal to be with him, was heading back toward them with the kids' hands in his. Both James and Philippa kept craning their necks to watch their house burn down.
The explosion was as beautiful as Mal. It was a cleansing fire, burning away all of Dom's past mistakes and misfortunes. And also, the fugly couch his in-laws had bought for them as a housewarming present. Dom felt strangely relieved, like a great weight had been lifted.
Eames looked at him. "What're you going to tell the police?"
That was an excellent question.
"Who wants to move to Buenos Aires?" Dom asked the kids.
*
End.
Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros., and Legendary Pictures. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Title: The House That Cobb Built [DW] [AO3]
Spoilers: Inception, obvs.
Warnings: This fic does not have anything in it that requires a warning.
Summary: The first and last time Eames was invited to the Cobb's. Arthur/Eames, Cobb, Philippa, James, OCs.
This story can be found translated into Russian here!
*
As soon as Dom opened the front door and found Arthur standing there in a dark brown three-piece suit with his hair carefully slicked back, he felt guilty. Had they lived in a perfect world, Mal would have been alive and none of this would have been happening. Or had they lived in a moderately excellent world (where people's wives still jumped to their deaths from hotel room windows, but everything else was, for the most part, okay), Dom would have told Arthur exactly what he needed, and Arthur would have happily come over in jeans and a t-shirt. As it was, they lived in a world that was dark and miserable and possibly actually a dream, so Dom had thought a bit of subterfuge was necessary. Ergo, Arthur in a suit.
(Additionally, he wasn't sure if Arthur even owned a pair of jeans; Arthur's version of casual wear usually involved button downs, paired with sweaters or sweatervests in the case of cooler weather. In the five years he'd known the man, the closest Dom had ever seen Arthur dress like a normal person was the time he'd been shot in Liaoning and he'd had to borrow a pair of Mal's jeans and one of Dom's undershirts, and then when he'd been waiting for them outside the pharmacy the police had tried to pick him up for soliciting. They had made a silent pact to never talk about Liaoning. Except for Mal; she had thought it was hilarious, and she'd had fun telling the story at parties, and Arthur still blamed her (but, you know, sadly) for certain people (Eames, his parents, the president of Liberia) not respecting him.)
Once Dom got Arthur inside and explained the sitution, Arthur stared at him like he had just declared himself king of California.
"I thought I was coming here for a job," Arthur said slowly, setting his man bag on the kitchen island.
"You are," Dom replied. He busied himself making coffee so he wouldn't have to see the fury in Arthur's eyes. Unfortunately, by avoiding Arthur's eyes, he was able to notice Arthur's bag matched his shoes, which caused Dom pain in an entirely different way. "A very, very important job."
"I came here from Iceland," Arthur said. "I had to change flights twice. It took me twelve hours to get here!"
"I need you," said Dom sincerely, pushing a mug into Arthur's hands.
"Twelve hours," Arthur repeated. He looked stunned. "You're telling me I came all the way from Iceland to babysit your kids while you-- while you do what, exactly?"
"An old friend of mine, Eric Nichols, is working on a mark I had when I first started extractions," Dom explained. "He's coming here with his team so I can give them the files and walk them through what Mal and I did."
"Nichols, your partner when you were in the NSA?" Arthur asked sharply.
Of course Arthur knew who Nichols was; Arthur knew almost everything. Sure, he didn't know how to cook anything other than ramen noodles or how to change his ringtone or how to uncover that Fischer's mind was militarized, but if you had ever done something that was later documented somewhere, Arthur was your man. While on the inception job, Ariadne had asked Dom, very seriously, if Arthur was secretly Judi Dench's son. It had taken Dom forever to realize Ariadne had meant M from James Bond and not actually Judi Dench, but the point was, Arthur was a robot disguised as a skinny kid.
"Do you think that's wise, Cobb, bringing him here?"
Dom nodded. "We bought this house when Nichols and I were still partners; there's no point in meeting him somewhere else if he already knows where I live. And," he added, having already thought this through days ago, "I can keep the kids nearby."
"You mean I can keep the kids nearby," Arthur said frostily.
Dom clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew I could count on you."
Arthur looked down at his coffee. "Do you trust his team?" he asked, in that way that Dom knew meant Arthur thought he was too careless.
"I've worked with Sanders, the architect, before, and you already know their forger."
Arthur's head snapped up. "Eames is coming here?" he demanded, but already he was running his hand down his waistcoat and straightening his shirt sleeves, as if being seen ever-so-slightly rumpled after a twelve-hour flight across two continents would ruin him in the eyes of Eames forever. If Eames hadn't been scared away by the mobster hair or the scowling or his tendency to punch people in the throat, a few creases weren't going to send him running for the hills. Dom would have said as much, except for, well, the throat-punching.
However, he did say, pointedly, "Are you saying you don't trust Eames?" knowing he had won this round the minute Eames's name had been mentioned. Arthur's mouth flattened into a thin line, but he didn't try to argue any more, and Dom called the kids in to say hi to their Uncle Arthur.
"Uncle Arthur," Philippa yelled, thrusting her latest toy in Arthur's face, "look at my new Barbie!"
James latched onto Arthur's legs and beamed up at him. With a pained sigh, Arthur took Philippa's Barbie from her hands and inspected it grimly. "Philippa, honey, we really need to have a discussion about accessories. Sometimes less is more."
"I owe you one," Dom said.
Arthur glared at him. "I'm so glad I got shot in Afghanistan so one day I could be here to babysit your children while you make under-handed deals with former government agents."
He took both the kids' hands and, in a dignified flounce only he could pull off, marched them down the hall to the rec room. Pleased, Dom started another pot of coffee for his upcoming guests.
*
The kids and Arthur were still safely hidden away by the time Nichols, Sanders, and Eames arrived. It was the first time Dom had seen Eames since the inception on Fischer, but he knew Arthur had worked with him twice since then, and Arthur had said Eames was in high demand now that militarization of the subconscious was becoming more and more common. Either way, Eames didn't look like someone who was making bank; far from Nichols' and Sanders' fitted suits, Eames was wearing jeans, a t-shirt that looked like he'd gotten it for free from a radio station give away, and a neon orange trucker hat. Arthur was going to have a shit fit.
"Good to see you still remember how to get here," Dom told Nichols, inviting them all in.
Last week, it had been awkward when Nichols had cornered Dom in the pastry section of Costco and said, "Look, I'm really sorry for believing you pushed Mal out of a six-story window, even though afterwards you did flee the country like Roman Polanski, but I'm working on a job with Demitrias Global, and..."
Now, though, Nichols chuckled, pulling Dom into a brief hug. "Of course I do," he said cheerfully. "Used to be, everyone knew Dominic Cobb always threw the best Superbowl parties."
"So this is the Cobb family home then?" Eames asked no one in particular, studying the pictures on the walls.
"The place looks the same," Nichols was murmuring, as Dom reached over to shake Sanders' hand.
Dom tried to push everyone toward his office, but Eames seemed enraptured by the photographs and stood his ground. He lingered over one from December 2008 (the last Christmas before Dom had incepted Mal and made the world into a sad, lonely place where he was was pushed, nay, forced into tricking his point man into coming from Iceland to babysit) and pursed his lips. "Cobb, I have three very important questions. One, why is Arthur in your family photo. Two, is he, in fact, wearing a reindeer jumper. And three, why is he wearing a yarmulke."
"Please don't touch anything," Dom said.
Eames gave him a look and then, to Dom's chagrin, began pushing all the frames so they were hanging lopsidedly. Dom grabbed his arm and wrestled him down the hall to the office.
"Okay, okay," Eames said, shaking him off, "I get it. Let's keep our hands to ourselves."
Nichols was eyeing Eames in a way that said he was wondering what he'd gotten himself into.
"Eames really is the best," Dom explained, gesturing at him with one hand. "He may have the emotional maturity of an eight year-old and the anti-social behaviour of a serial killer, but you won't regret hiring him."
"I resent that," Eames protested, taking a seat and propping his feet up on Dom's desk. "I'm very mature."
At that, Dom headed back to the kitchen to get the coffee. He trusted Nichols and Sanders wouldn't attempt to pry open his file cabinet (the key was in his pocket), or hack into his computer (password: whymalwhy), or tip-toe down the hall and attempt to steal his children. Attempt, of course, not succeed: Arthur would probably kill the two of them with nothing more than a Barbie and a Transformer, and still have the energy afterwards to complain Dom was ruining his life. An accusation which was ridiculous, of course, because Dom didn't ruin people's lives. He had made Arthur's life better by rescuing him from the soul-sucking black hole that was medical school. Arthur hadn't really wanted to be a doctor, just like Mal hadn't really wanted to stay in Limbo. Dom liked helping people, even if all he got in return was heartbreak.
Of course, Eames could probably open Dom's file cabinet with a paperclip, or figure out Dom's incredibly secure password, or even get past Arthur (it would be difficult, of course, but Dom had once been punched by Eames and had blacked out for a solid twenty minutes, and Dom was at least a foot taller and considerably heavier than either of them (okay, maybe not a foot, but Arthur still looked like a teenager and Eames was a midget, and Mal, may she rest in peace, used to say Dom was a redwood of a man with the deep, soulful eyes of a poet)) and turn his innocent little angels into scruffy, foul-mouthed hooligans. Concerned, Dom hurried back to his office.
"And that's why the lovely departed Mrs Cobb would never allow me in her home," Eames was saying when Dom burst through the door.
Sanders and Nichols looked aghast.
"Ah, coffee," Eames said, noticing Dom. "Wonderful."
Dom passed out the mugs from his tray and pulled another chair up to his desk. Eames gave him a smile that was probably meant to be innocent but came out disgusting, and Dom pointedly picked up his laptop and sat it in his lap.
"I hope Eames hasn't been frightening you with his lies," said Dom, thinking of all the horrible blackmail Eames had on him, such as the Fischer job, or the time he had accidentally shot the client instead of the mark, or his paralyzing fear of chickens. There was a reason he didn't keep people around who knew him very well now, other than Arthur; they either humiliated you in front of people you were working with, or they invaded your dreams and forced you to deal with your overbearing guilt over your wife's death. No one believed in privacy anymore.
Eames smirked. "No, only with the truth. By the way," he asked, with an obviously forced nonchalance, "who's watching the Cobblets?"
"Arthur," Dom replied.
"Really?" Eames glanced around, trying and failing to look disinterested. "I'd be worried that stick-in-the-mud was making them alphabetize their book collection, or organize their toybox, or--"
"He's in the rec room," Dom interrupted, knowing what Eames pointedly wasn't asking.
Eames jumped up. "Cheers," he called, already halfway out the door. Dom rolled his eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Nichols asked. "Did he just leave during our debriefing?"
"Eames'll catch up," Dom replied.
*
In 2001, back before Dom had incepted Mal, when the world had been full of sunshine and rainbows, Dom had been hired by the CIA to do an extraction on a Central American general who may or may not have been planning a coup in his country. Dom had only recently left the NSA, because his dad was sick and he and Mal were thinking about starting a family, and the NSA didn't exactly hire agents part time; in solidarity, Mal had also left her job with the CIA. It was Mal who had made it known to her bosses she wouldn't mind consulting now and again, probably knowing that as much as they might enjoy it, they couldn't spend twenty-four hours a day trying to make a baby. Or waiting for Dom's dad to die. Whichever came first.
The CIA had informed Dom that they would overlook the fact he'd "forgotten" to return his PASIV to the NSA when he'd resigned in return for working for them as a consultant.
So he and Mal, still not pregnant despite many, many, many, many attempts, had gone off to this unnamed Central American country and performed a highly dangerous extraction on an equally highly dangerous man. Militarization wasn't very common back then, but it was still a difficult job. Dom was used to extractions with only two people (Nichols and himself), following NSA protocol, but as a CIA agent Mal was used to three, and neither of them were used to extracting together. They had only escaped by the skin of their teeth.
(Dom's dad, his only remaining family outside of Mal, had died while they were on the job, which just went to show how Dom's life was unceasing anguish and despair.)
They had worked three more jobs like this before Mal had put her elegant foot down and insisted on another team member. Specifically, she had demanded a point man, and one of her contacts in the DoD had given her the name of the perfect person for the job. Then she had put Dom on a plane to Chicago, where he'd met a twenty-five year-old first year med student who had been given a medical discharge from the army after a very brief tour in Afghanistan. His name was David Arthur Levi, and the first thing he had said to Dom was, "I feel bad for the homeless guy you stole those shoes from."
Anyway, now Mal was gone, David was Arthur, Nichols was a freelance extractor, and Dom's dream house was full of criminals. The Central American general was now a VP of a multinational corporation, and another company, Demetrias Global, had hired Nichols to extract from him.
"He's not militarized," Dom explained to Nichols. "Still, I'd be willing to bet he's a sociopath; his projections were brutal."
"He might not have been militarized then, but he most certainly is now," Nichols suggested.
Sanders leaned forward. "We need to know what we're getting into. DG's offering a lot of money for this, so they must know something we don't."
Dom took the file out of his cabinet and walked them through the the extraction on the then-general's, which had included an enormous fairytale-style castle and a projection of a very evil stepmother who kept trying to poison Mal, up until Mal had choked her on her own apple. Because Mal had been beautiful and graceful in every way and had made birds sing and flowers bloom, she had also killed beautifully. Dom hadn't been at all perturbed at seeing an evil old witch choking to death. But he hadn't been happy when a tower had fallen on him and squashed him like a bug. Mal had finished the extraction alone after that.
At one point during his explanation, Dom looked up to find Arthur watching them. His face was blank in a way that Dom knew meant he was cataloging everything about Nichols for later, storing it away in that great big file cabinet in his brain. However, Dom was relieved to see he'd stripped out of his suit and was wearing just the trousers and button down, with the sleeves rolled up; his feet were bare. Arthur was much less likely to attack when he wasn't wearing socks.
When he caught Dom looking, he said, "Cobb, you're out of Pepsi."
Dom frowned. "I just bought that pack yesterday. Did you drink all of it already?" Arthur shrugged. "One day you will be old, and you will get diabetes."
"You'll be well on your way to your second heart attack by then, old man," Arthur said smugly, and Sanders looked down at her coffee (her third cup and counting) and winced.
"Where's Eames?" Dom asked in revenge.
Arthur looked contrite. He wiped his palms on his pants, a sure sign he was embarrassed about something. "He's showing the kids his tattoos."
Dom sighed. "See, this is why my in-laws don't like me," he said.
As soon as Arthur left the room, Nichols turned to Dom and demanded, sounding angry, "Why does your babysitter look like he stepped out of a J.Crew catalogue? How does he know this Eames guy -- who, by the way, is a freak. What has happened to your life, Dom?"
"Well, first I was accused of murder, and it all went downhill from there," Dom replied.
*
An hour later, they tried to kill him.
It was the perfect set up; Dom truly had no idea. Maybe it was because Dom was out of practice, not having worked for nearly six months; maybe it was because he had known Nichols back when Dom was fresh-faced and naive (and the dreamiest guy who'd ever worked for a secret American intelligence agency), when he had eagerly signed up to test a new government dreamsharing device without considering all the consequences. Or maybe it was because Dom was just such a darn nice guy. Either way, he was fully unprepared when it happened.
Dom had just finished giving them the walk-through of his extraction and all the information he had on the mark, when Sanders knocked the file off the desk. It tumbled to the floor, scattering the papers he'd once made Arthur meticulously organize against his will.
"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, looking flustered.
Dom started to reach for it, but suddenly he remembered something he'd left out of his report. "Hey," he began, straightening back up.
Sanders was standing over him with her hand in the air, a hypodermic needle clenched in her fist.
Dom looked at her. She looked at him. In the three seconds they gazed at each other, a guilty expression slowly crossed over her face.
That was when Dom grabbed his closed laptop off the desk and slammed it into her head with as much force as he could muster, which was a lot, because Dom was strong and tall and blond like a Viking. She collapsed at the same time Nichols jumped to his feet, pulling a gun out of nowhere, and Dom swung the laptop into his hand. The gun went sailing across the room and Dom drove the heel of his shoe into the side of Nichol's kneecap, hard, hearing a sickening crunch as it twisted. With a cry that sounded more surprised than pained, Nichols fell; Dom punched him once in the nose, and then he snatched up the laptop again and knocked Nichols unconscious.
Dom was left standing in the middle of his office in complete chaos. "Arthur," he called over his shoulder. "Arthur, where are you?"
There was no answer.
He searched vainly for Nichol's gun, but he couldn't find it. Next, he quickly patted down Sanders, and when he didn't find a gun, he crushed her syringe under his heel. The colour of whatever it was they were going to inject him with wasn't right for Somnacin, so they probably weren't here to extract from him. The only other option was they were here to kill him. Being betrayed by his oldest friend was something that could only happen to Dom. Everything was terrible.
Making sure James and Philippa were safe was his next goal. He desperately hoped Arthur's silence simply meant he hadn't heard anything, and not that assassins had been sent to take him and the kids out before Dom was dealt with. Normally, Dom wouldn't worry about assassins getting the better of Arthur, because Arthur was basically a ninja, but with Eames there to distract him -- who knew. When Eames was around, Arthur always seemed overly (well, more) concerned about his appearance and verbally slaughtering Eames in any argument, and Dom would have bet Arthur and Eames were currently involved in one of their usual bickering slash thinly-veiled flirting matches and had forgotten the rest of the world existed.
He closed the door to the office and locked it, and then he shoved a chair under the doorknob for good measure. Then he crept down the hall to the rec room. The door was ajar, and he silently slid inside.
The first thing Dom looked for were the kids, and he spotted them immediately; James was asleep and drooling on the couch, and Philippa was sitting on the floor with Arthur and Eames, clapping her hands in glee. Dom had ten seconds to take in the fact that not only were Eames and Arthur kissing in the middle of Philippa's princess tea party, but Arthur was also wearing Eames's godawful trucker hat. When Arthur noticed him, he jerked back, looking startled. "Cobb," he started, "I swear, I was going to tell you--"
"I know," said Dom, "you're here, you're queer, I'm used to it. Now hand me a gun. Nichols and Sanders are trying to kill me."
Dom very pointedly did not look at Eames's hands still resting on Arthur's waist; he and Arthur were going to have words later about Arthur doing that -- doing sexual things with Eames in front of his precious babies, who were far too young to be subjected to anything involving touching or kissing or pee-pees. As a parent who kept up with the latest trends (now that he was back from his two year whirl-wind adventure of hitting rock bottom), Dom made sure to keep the kids away from anything sexually explicit, like Sesame Street.
He kept his attention focused, instead, on Arthur's very annoyed face, which did look much less intimidating when Arthur was wearing a neon orange cap. "You said you trusted them," Arthur said.
"I know, you were right, I'm sorry," Dom snapped. They didn't have time to argue about this. He held out a hand and wiggled his fingers. "Arthur! Gun!"
"I only brought the one," Arthur said sheepishly. But he jumped to his feet, and he took his shoulder holster out of the pile of clothes he had left folded on the foosball table (and Dom was not thinking about that). He handed over his Glock 17 to Dom. After that, he hesitated, and he glanced down at the floor at Philippa, who clearly had no idea what her daddy and uncle were fighting about.
Arthur crouched down to her level. "Sweetie, do you have anything Uncle Arthur can use to seriously injure some very, very bad people who want to hurt Daddy?"
"No, she doesn't have anything!" Dom yelled. "Why would you think--?"
"My tea set has a knife," interrupted Philippa.
"She's very much Mal's daughter, isn't she," Eames said.
To Dom's surprise, Eames hiked up the left leg of his jeans to reveal an ankle holster. He pulled a 9mm out and passed it over to Arthur. Then he did the same to his right leg, but he kept that one for himself.
"How many guns do you have on you?" Arthur asked, sounding impressed.
"Seven," Eames replied with a leer. "I've also stashed a rucksack with grenades and guns in the master toilet."
Dom frowned. "Why?"
"Being a reasonably intelligent human being, I realized something was amiss when a former NSA agent contacted me and asked me to join him on a job for a mark you had previously extracted from," explained Eames. "So I took the liberty of bringing a small arsenal with me."
"Thanks for the warning," Dom snapped.
"We've been here for hours and you didn't think of telling me this?" Arthur demanded.
"Also, while you were with that lot in the office I rigged the entire house with C4," Eames continued.
Dom closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. But when he opened them, Eames was still standing there looking smug, and he was still suggesting they do the unthinkable and blow up the house Dom and Mal had bought for their family.
Arthur was gazing at Eames thoughtfully. "Excellent work, Mr Eames."
He had stars in his eyes. Dom resisted the urge to punch him in the throat, like Arthur had done to him so many times before.
"Thank you, darling," Eames replied. "I do live for your approval."
*
An interlude.
Arthur was in the middle of watching Philippa's Barbie funeral when Eames made an appearance. Now, Arthur was not and would never be a parent, but even he knew it was probably a bad sign when a little kid was throwing a funeral for her Barbie (attended, of course, by all the other Barbies, Kens, Skippers, and Kellys), in an obvious and creepy retelling of her own mother's funeral.
"And now Ken is crying," Philippa explained. "Uncle Arthur, you can be the police who come and take him to the police station."
Arthur remembered that from Mal's funeral, too. "I'm not really comfortable with this," he said.
Philippa's eyes shone with unshed tears. She sniffed dramatically. "You said you'd play with me."
Arthur sighed. He glanced around at all the dolls. "Which ones are the police?"
James handed Arthur a Ken and a Barbie; the Ken was wearing a sailor uniform, and the Barbie was a doctor.
"I see you've played this before," Arthur said to James, taking them.
When Philippa looked at him in expectation, he sighed again and said, in a falsetto, "Mr Ken, can you please come with us to the station?"
"Oh no, what have I done?" Philippa made Ken say.
She picked up another Ken doll, this one dressed in a black tux. "Ken, you monster!"
That was supposed to be him, Arthur realized with horror. Mal's death hadn't exactly brought out the best in everyone.
"Okay, it's time to play a different game," Arthur said loudly.
"But I was enjoying watching you play with dolls, sugar plum," said a new but familiar voice.
Standing in the doorway was Eames. Arthur mentally counted to five before turning to look at him directly. Naturally, Eames looked like a trainwreck, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and an orange cap, with several days' worth of scruff on his face and tobacco stains on his fingers. His ridiculous tattoos peeked out from under his sleeves. He was disgusting. Arthur most definitely did not want to climb him like a tree.
"Eames," Arthur greeted, coolly raising an eyebrow.
"Hello, gorgeous," said Eames. He leaned against the door frame and dragged his eyes across Arthur's body in a way that was filthy and highly inappropriate, considering there were children in the room. "Minding the Cobb sprogs, are we?"
"We're playing Barbies!" Philippa said happily.
Eames leered. "I'm imagining wee little Arthur in his little suit and his little--"
"She's recreating Mal's funeral," Arthur interrupted flatly.
"Oh dear Lord," Eames said, "how horribly creepy."
Without asking, Eames strode into the room and threw himself on the floor beside James, crossing his legs like Arthur's; James's eyes rounded with fear, and he crawled into Arthur's lap, leaving him and Eames sitting next to each other. Sighing -- he seemed to do that a lot around this family -- Arthur wrapped an arm around James, hoping he wasn't about to cry or something equally appalling.
Eames looked at Arthur and smiled, scooting over to take up the little bit of space James had left. The smile made his whole face crease and showed off the slight crookedness of his front teeth, but Arthur kind of, sort of liked it; all of Eames's imperfections -- and, boy, did he have a lot -- were as endearing as they were frustrating. On top of that he smelled infuriatingly good, and even his stupidly casual outfit couldn't hide how good he looked. Arthur raised his chin and looked away.
Since Cobb (the bastard) had slipped up and let Arthur know Eames was coming, Arthur was fully prepared for Eames's usual display of-- Eamesness. Arthur liked being prepared; he especially liked being prepared for Eames, because if he wasn't careful, Eames would leave him feeling young and stupid, Arthur's two least favourite feelings. Just like last week in Reykjavík, when he'd shown up out of nowhere and after dinner had cupped Arthur's face in his hands and-- or the time before in Dublin, when he'd slid an arm around Arthur's waist and-- or in New York, when they'd--
"It's okay," Arthur told James. "This is my... friend, Mr Eames."
Much to his surprise, Eames held out his hand to James. With a tentative smile, James shook it; his tiny little hand could only wrap around three of Eames's fingers. "Pleasure to meet you, James," Eames said sincerely, as Philippa giggled.
Arthur's heart did not melt. At all.
*
Somehow, Eames managed to convince Philippa to abandon her upsetting game of Barbie funeral and move onto a tea party. From the bookshelf she removed a big case full of plastic pink cups, cutlery, plates, and a big tea pot; it even had plastic, sparkling tea cakes. Philippa made a big production out of passing everything out.
"Pinkies up!" she declared, demonstrating with her own hand. "This is how you drink tea."
"This is exactly what England's like," Eames said dryly. Unlike Arthur, who, naturally, drank his tea with poise and grace, Eames couldn't uncurl his pinkie when he stuck it up in the air, and he couldn't fit a finger into the handle of the cup. It looked absurd.
Arthur couldn't help but laugh, even as he pulled a fake tea cake out of James's mouth. "I'm sure Cobb had this specially flown in from Harrods."
"This is the best tea I've ever had," Eames told Philippa, giving her a winning smile. She beamed up at him.
Arthur really preferred this over the traumatic game they were playing earlier. He'd never thought he'd be sitting on the floor of Cobb's rec room with Eames, pretending to drink tea from a My Pretty Princess cup; this wasn't the first time he'd been tricked into doing something for Cobb(organizing, shopping, and on one memorable occasion, jury duty), but he had to admit, this was kind of nice.
"What's with the ironic trucker hat?" Arthur asked. "Did you beat up a hipster?"
"It's not ironic," Eames countered. "I'm in disguise."
Arthur's eyebrows shot up. "As what?"
"An American."
"And this is how all Americans dress," Arthur stated, scowling.
Eames snorted. "Well, not you, obviously. You're special. But I'm sure Cobb buys his jeans at Walmart."
Arthur shook his head. "No -- Old Navy. He made me go and buy him a pair once. It was the worst experience of my life."
Philippa looked up at him with wide eyes.
"You heard me," he told her.
*
But back to the story.
Getting James and Philippa to safety was easier said than done. First, because Dom's neighbours believed he'd killed Mal (even though Dom was innocent. mostly.), even now after Saito had bribed the state of California to drop the charges, and therefore most of them didn't talk to him anymore; and second, because the kids both insisted on taking toys with them. James deliberated over which stuffed animal to take, and Philippa asked Arthur to choose which Barbie she should travel with, much to Arthur's obvious chagrin.
It wasn't like Dom could tell them he was taking them to a neighbour's house because otherwise they might die. Mostly he didn't know if James fully understood what "die" meant, plus Philippa might tell his mother-in-law. In the weeks leading up to her death, Mal had taken to ignoring the children, but a sane Mal would have murdered Dom for giving them the opportunity to realize their own human fragility. In a perfect world, they never would have been exposed to their mother's death, which had raised all sorts of uncomfortable questions Dom hadn't been able to answer. Had they lived in the semi-perfect world in which Mal was dead but everything else was fine, Dom might have been able to explain to them what it meant for their mother to go away and never come back. But in the horrible, maybe-dream that was their dark reality, Dom had made Arthur do it. Yet they were kids, and they were his angels, and they weren't supposed to realize that they themselves could die until they were at least in their twenties.
"I don't know which Barbie you should take," Arthur told Philippa, sounding exasperated. His mouth curled in a moue. "How about the one who was--" his eyes flickered to Dom "--the, uh, star of the game?"
"You want me to raise Barbie from the grave?" Philippa shrieked.
"No, of course not," Arthur replied slowly.
Eames looked up from where he was shoving James' stuffed polar bear, whose name was Mr Icy Pants, into his tiny backpack. "You don't find any of this odd?" he murmured to Dom.
Dom sent him a narrow-eyed frown. "What's weird about this?"
"Why don't you take this one?" Arthur asked Philippa, handing her a Barbie in a doctor's lab coat.
Philippa took it and nodded determinedly. "Thank you, Uncle Arthur.
"Daddy," she began, as Dom took the kids' hands and led them out of the rec room, safely behind Arthur and Eames, who both had their guns drawn, "when we get back, you need to help me with the funeral. Uncle Arthur and Mr Eames won't play it with me anymore."
"Sure, honey," Dom said, squeezing her hand.
"Seriously, have you ever thought about sending mini-Mal here to a therapist?" Eames asked.
Suddenly, shots came from the direction of the office, missing Dom's head by mere inches. The kids screamed and he ducked, pulling them down with him and through the intersection where two hallways connected. He launched himself to the left, in the direction of the master bedroom, putting the wall between them and the office. On the opposite side of the hall, which led to the kitchen, were Arthur and Eames; Eames was on one knee, taking shots from below, and Arthur was standing above him, firing.
"Shh," Dom told James and Philippa; James was crying because of the loud noises, and Philippa was clinging to Dom's neck so tightly he could barely breathe.
"Get behind me," Eames grunted to Arthur, as several shots whizzed past them, nicking the wall right by their faces. Pictures crashed to the floor, their glass frames shattering; Dom heard the distinct sound of a vase breaking. He hoped it was the one Mal's Aunt Georgette had given them for their tenth anniversary.
"Why?" Arthur demanded, even as Eames grabbed his arm and tugged him down to the floor.
"Because I'm bigger than you."
"Is this a joke about your penis?" Arthur asked, deadpan.
"Penis!" said James.
"Thanks, Arthur," Dom yelled. James sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on Dom's shoulder.
"'Penis' is not a dirty word. The human body is a natural--"
"Can we," Eames interrupted, shouting over the sounds of gunfire, "not do this now?"
There was a sudden lull in the shooting. Dom didn't know if Nichols and Sanders were reloading or planning something else or what, but he knew he needed to get the kids out now. He glanced over at the bedroom door; the master bedroom had french doors leading out into the backyard. It was his only chance of getting the kids out of the house safely, but the office also had windows facing the backyard, and there was a chance they could be spotted. He hoped Arthur remembered the layout of the house.
"Arthur," Dom called, starting to move toward the door, "I'm getting out. Keep them busy."
"We've got it," Arthur growled, his face tight. Eames reloaded his 9mm and gave Dom a short nod.
No shots followed Dom as he rushed the kids out the bedroom doors, through the backyard, and past the gate; he assumed Arthur and Eames were keeping Nichols and Sanders sufficiently occupied. He immediately headed six houses down the block, to a home owned by a couple who had just recently moved to the neighbourhood with their three children, in the hope none of the other neighbours had gotten to them yet and had alerted them to Dom's supposed crime.
After a knock, Ann Gillespie answered the door. "Hi, Dominic," she greeted warmly.
He smiled. "Hi, Ann. Could you do me a favour and watch Philippa and James for a few hours? We've had, um, a family emergency."
Ann's eyes drifted toward his house. "Are those gunshots?"
Dom's smile waned. "A car must have back-fired."
"Over and over?" she asked suspiciously.
Something that sounded like a boom erupted behind Dom, from the direction of his house. Eames and his goddamned grenades.
"Would you believe me," Dom asked, looking her directly in the eye, "if I told you I was involved in a very dangerous and very secret government program, the likes of which I can't explain to you for the sake of national security?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Then I would need to see some ID. My husband's in the FBI."
Dom deflated; things like this always worked in dreams.
"Please take the kids," he pleaded. "And please... don't call the police for at least another twenty minutes."
Smoke was billowing from the right wing of Dom's house when he returned, and there was a giant hole in the roof. It was well known that Eames' lust for things that explode was only rivaled by his hard-on for Arthur (although the one time Dom had said that out loud Arthur had bit his head off), and so Dom really shouldn't have been surprised that Eames was all too happy to use the grenades he'd secretly brought into Dom's home. That didn't stop him, however, from feeling sick and angry that his house -- the house he and Mal had bought to raise their family in -- was being blown to pieces.
When he got back inside, via the bedroom back door, they were still firing at each other. Arthur and Eames were still in the hallway junction, although they had traded their small 9mms for much larger artillery -- including the assault rifle Eames now had in his hands. How he had managed to sneak that past Nichols and Sanders, Dom didn't want to know. They had traded positions, with Arthur now kneeling on the floor and Eames standing above him with the rifle, and an open backpack, grenades and ammunition spilling out of it, sat at Arthur's feet.
Dom managed to get a few good shots in himself, blindly aiming in the direction of the office, and Nichols and Sanders stopped firing abruptly, again. Dom wondered if one of them had been hit.
"We went through a lot of trouble to get to you, Dom," called Nichols. "Be a sport and give yourself up."
"Who hired you?" Dom shouted back.
"Cobol, of course."
Arthur gave Dom a surprised look. "Cobol still wants us? I thought they gave up months ago."
"Actually," replied Nichols, "they only hired us to kill Dom. Your name never even came up. I don't even think they know who you are."
"Those bastards!" Arthur said.
"I thought we were friends, Nichols," Dom yelled, letting all his betrayal, confusion, and rage seep into his voice. "I've known you twenty years. You were my best man, for God's sake."
There was a long pause.
"I may have a gambling problem," Nichols called back. "Also, I really like cocaine."
Dom was taken aback. "So you're willing to kill me, your oldest friend, for drugs and poker?"
"Ponies, actually. I play the ponies."
"People still do that?" Arthur muttered. "What are we, in My Fair Lady?"
"That was a really gay reference," Eames said.
*
Eventually, the shooting started again, and Dom realized with a growing sense of horror that Nichols wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to stop, and Dom was going to have to kill him. As a general rule, Dom didn't kill people in real life; he had, of course, in the line of duty, or that one time in Canada when that guy had stolen his bagel. But for the most part, Dom tried to leave as small a body trail as he could, and he had persuaded Arthur to do the same. To be fair, Arthur pretty much always did what Dom told him to, even as he bitched about it. (Eames, Dom was certain, killed people all the time; not only did he suffer from a distinct lack of empathy (and Dom was not bitter about all the times Eames had called him a psychopath), he also didn't seem to go anywhere without at least three guns on his person at all times. He must have been horrible to fly with.)
So Dom was going to have to kill Eric Nichols, his oldest friend, and Sanders, whom he barely knew, because this was exactly the kind of thing that happened to him.
"Is there a door to the outside in the office?" Eames asked Dom as he shoved another magazine into his rifle.
Dom shook his head, grimacing as a bullet went right past his cheek. "No, but there's a window."
"But we have the door, yeah?"
"Yeah," Arthur replied. "There's a door in the kitchen leading to the right side of the backyard, and one in the master bedroom leading to the left side."
"Cobb," Eames said very seriously, "we need to blow up your house."
"No," Dom insisted.
"Yes," Eames replied.
"No."
"Either way," Arthur cut in, not looking away from his target, "we need to get out of here. Eventually, we're going to run out of bullets. They might also call in reinforcements."
Eames sighed loudly through his nose. "If we blow up the house, we can take Nichols and Sanders with it. Then you won't have to worry about them finding you or the little ones."
"He does have a point," Arthur said.
Dom scowled at him. "As the official president of the Eames fanclub, you don't get to have a say in this."
"Actually, I'd say that sleeping with Eames would make me the least likely person to agree with him," Arthur replied, and Eames made a face at him even as he zipped up the backpack and shrugged it on.
While Dom fired at what he hoped was Nichol's head behind the door frame, Eames threw himself across the hallway, narrowly avoiding a returning shot. He slammed onto the floor loudly, grunting in pain. Then Arthur did a very complicated backflip over the line of bullets and gracefully landed next to Dom.
"Bloody hell," said Eames, in a tone that said he was going to do horrible, disgusting things to Arthur later after witnessing that display of agility.
"Show off," said Dom, hating all young people. Arthur smirked at him.
Eames turned to Dom, his face grave again. "It's just a house, Cobb."
"Okay, I'm thinking," Dom interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Let me think!"
This was the house he and Mal had bought to raise their family in. James and Philippa had lived here their whole lives. This was where he and Mal had made love countless times, this was where they'd had parties and holidays and lazy Sunday mornings, this was where they had gone into Limbo for the first time, this was where Mal had sat at the table playing with knives, this was where Mal had chased Arthur around the house with said knives while screaming about how Arthur was obviously a projection because no real person would match their shoes and belt to their man bag, this was where Dom had tackled Mal after she'd cut Arthur with said knives because Arthur had said, "It's not a man bag, it's a satchel," this--
"Give me the damn detonator," Dom ordered, holding out his hand.
Eames grinned at him and then tossed a grenade in the direction of the office.
As the house crumbled beneath the flames, Dom and Eames stood several houses away, out of sight from the neighbours, who all seemed to be coming out to watch what was happening. Arthur, as someone people in the neighbourhood recognized, possibly because they thought Dom had murdered Mal to be with him, was heading back toward them with the kids' hands in his. Both James and Philippa kept craning their necks to watch their house burn down.
The explosion was as beautiful as Mal. It was a cleansing fire, burning away all of Dom's past mistakes and misfortunes. And also, the fugly couch his in-laws had bought for them as a housewarming present. Dom felt strangely relieved, like a great weight had been lifted.
Eames looked at him. "What're you going to tell the police?"
That was an excellent question.
"Who wants to move to Buenos Aires?" Dom asked the kids.
*
End.
Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros., and Legendary Pictures. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.