→ love is a doing word (2/2)
It begins with an ocean.
It is cold and Mal is soaked. She sputters and tries to breathe and Dom hauls her up before the final reckoning of a wave, pulls at her arm until they’re safely on shore.
“We’re in Limbo,” Dom says breathlessly. “Jesus Christ, Mal. There’s nothing here.”
Mal looks back over her shoulder, wondering what a bartender and an architect could create in the mind. She smiles, too, because she has a lifetime to spend with Dom and so many memories to recreate. “I’m worried,” she lies. “How do we get out?”
“I don’t know,” Dom shouts, raising his voice over the sound of the waves. “I don’t know.”
*
They grow old together.
Mal thinks there is something very romantic about the wrinkles in Dom’s hands, particularly when he’s holding her. He doesn’t remember who they were before this reality. And if he does, he never says so. Mal watches him with a quiet affection, peppering kisses along his cheek.
One evening, Dom goes for a walk. He does not come back for some length of time that Mal computes simply as too long.
Those wrinkled hands, delicate and dangerous, hide something away, deep inside of her, and she doesn’t even know it.
*
Eventually, Dom figures it out. Or maybe he really has known this whole time. He lays Mal down gently on the tracks of a railroad and hovers above her for just a moment. Closing his eyes, he presses his lips to her forehead, her nose, just below her chin.
And Mal - Mal thinks of Arthur and Eames. She thinks of how beautiful it was to hear those defining words from Arthur’s lips.
Two halves of a whole.
She stares at Dom, this time with a sudden fear that this could be ripped away from her. Or maybe this won’t work, in the end. Stepping delicately along a metaphorical tightrope, she realizes she can’t tell if she’s awake or not.
There’s a rumbling sound coming from behind her, getting louder and louder. She thinks back to how she got here, not sure where ‘here’ is anymore. Dom is saying something but he’s making no sound and the rumbling against the tracks is getting closer and closer and closer until she feels her lips move and her bones shake and -
*
*
*
She sits up.
Dom reaches out to touch her, says something about a dream, about an ocean. Mal drops her head in her lap, pushes away when Dom’s fingers brush against her neck.
Without a word, she gets up and leaves.
Deep down, too deep down for her to notice, something is wrong.
*
For the first two days, she locks herself away in their bedroom and doesn’t come out. There’s something very tragic about the way she feels, bone-deep awful. She feels terrified, too, because she wants to go back to something that may not have been real.
And yet there’s that incessant feeling of dread because this - this, right here and now - might not be real. That if she lays herself down on a train track or jumps off her Juliet’s balcony she’ll wake up.
Still, she finds it very romantic.
*
It takes less than a week for Dom to panic. In that time, he places a phone call.
“Dom. Hey.”
“I need to talk to you,” Dom says hurriedly. “In person. In private. It’s about -“
“Dreams?” Arthur supplies, in case Dom is unable to say it.
“Yes. It’s important.”
“I’ll make the drive down there. Meet me at Mal’s bar.”
Dom pauses. “You still call it that,” he notes quietly. “She doesn’t work there anymore.”
“I know,” Arthur says, thinking back on how many times he swore he hated her and how many more he fell in love. “She left her mark, though.”
*
“Mal and I were dreaming,” Dom says, taking a sip of his beer. “We were in Limbo.”
Arthur looks down at the table, suddenly interested in the grain of the wood. Eames, he thinks. I miss Eames.
“Oh,” is what he says instead.
“When we woke up, I checked the PASIV. The compound wasn’t right. Do you think someone could have gotten their hands on it?”
Arthur shakes his head almost carelessly before looking back up. “Was it - did you -“
Dom sighs. “Do you remember when you punched me? I basically told you to get over it. You and Eames. I shouldn’t have.
It was - good. It was good, for a long time. For decades. Mal wanted to stay forever. Jesus Arthur, she didn’t want to leave. I-I told her we couldn’t stay down there. I made us wake up. She isn’t the same now.”
Arthur knows. God, he knows. He knows how badly Mal must want Dom to be with her. How badly she must want to spend every waking moment with him. How she thinks about him even when she doesn’t want to, dreams about him every time she has the misfortune of sleeping.
“Why are you telling me this?” Arthur asks, fidgeting slightly in his chair because he wishes to God Eames hadn’t left.
“Because I kind of wanted to stay down there, too,” he admits. “But I can’t now. Mal would know.”
“How?”
Dom doesn’t answer him. He pays for both of their beers and has the decency to let Arthur stay the night. Arthur lies awake in the guest room, listening in on the quiet murmurings of a beautiful baby girl.
*
*
*
It takes a year for the two of them (old friends, old criminals) to meet up. As it happens, they’re both still dreaming and for no good reason.
In that time, Mal has had another baby and Dom has found work in the dreamsharing business. Arthur has, too, but it isn’t until they meet in New York that they realize they’re working for each other.
“Arthur,” Dom says a little breathlessly. “I’m - what are you -“
“I’m keeping watch for the dreamers,” he explains. He sets the equipment down by the chairs, pulling his Walkman out afterwards. “I didn’t know you were extracting.”
“I have to,” Dom says. “I need to know how to take information out. It’s important.”
“Sure,” Arthur says, holding one headphone at his ear to test the music out.
“What is that for?” Dom asks. “The music. I know that song, it’s -“
“For the kick. The song is, uh-“ Arthur clears his throat. “It’s Edith Piaf.”
When the others dream, he thinks of Eames. He thinks of how badly, right here and now, he wants to kiss him. He wants Eames to pin him down on the bed and fuck him so hard he can’t see straight. He wants him to leave bruising kisses along his neck, his ribs, that sensitive spot along his side. And then he thinks of how important it was that Dom admitted how much he wanted to stay in Limbo, because Arthur felt that too. And if, perchance, he’d had control over it, would he have regretted it?
No, I regret nothing.
*
Eames comes back to the States only because Arthur asked him to. When he called, he’d made it sound urgent. And it was, yes, but the urgency was really because Arthur missed him. It had been too long. Simply too long.
When Eames knocks hesitantly on his hotel room door, Arthur has to wonder if this is the right thing to do. He swings the door open and watches him, searches for a sign that Eames has missed him just as much.
“Can you believe,” Eames starts, “that we used to hate being apart?” He drops his luggage off in the living room and leans in, both their foreheads touching. “I’m not very romantic about this, but I still hate it. Being apart.”
And then Eames is pushing him, coaxing him to the couch and kissing his neck, his ribs, that sensitive spot along his side.
“Fuck you,” he breathes, letting Eames pin him down until he feels like he can’t breathe. “I missed you too, you bastard.”
Eames chuckles, the most pleasant sound Arthur’s heard in a year.
*
Afterwards, they talk. They need to. After all, Arthur had a reason for wanting Eames to come back. Well, two.
He takes a cigarette from Eames’ pack and lights it, setting the ashtray in the middle of the table for the both of them to share. “When I met up with Dom, he told me he needed to learn how to extract.”
Eames unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt and rolls up his sleeves. Around his cigarette, he says, “Oh yeah? Haven’t seen the wanker in a year. He’s still with Mal, yes?”
“Yeah,” Arthur nods. “They had another baby, too.”
“Good, good. So back to extraction. Why? Why’s he need to know so badly?”
Arthur crushes the butt of his cigarette and instantly lights up another. He’s stressed. He’s so stressed he can hardly stand it. There’s something very, very important here, between him and Eames, right at their fingertips.
“You’ve heard of inception,” he says, and Eames nods. “I think Dom did it to Mal. And I think he wants to undo it.”
Eames sits up a little straighter, flicking the lighter. “What’d he incept her with?”
“Dom called me a week or so ago and told me Mal’s losing it. They were in Limbo, just like… you know, just like us.”
“With the same result?” Eames asks hesitantly, and Arthur wonders if he feels it too, the ever-present desire to stay together.
“Can’t tell because Mal’s not all there. But here’s the twist,” Arthur adds. He holds up a photograph of the inside of a PASIV. “I read through Miles’ papers on dreamsharing when I visited Dom and Mal. He says that the amount of Somnacin can be molded to achieve a certain effect. For research, it can be molded to result in Limbo if the dreamers are too many levels deep.”
“Yes, yes,” Eames says, blowing out a puff of smoke. “So you’re saying someone toyed with the PASIV before Dom and Mal went under?”
“I’m saying - “ Arthur pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “I’m saying it was Mal, Eames. She knew what it would do. She saw the way we were after we woke up. She wanted what we had, even if we didn’t. She wanted to be us, Eames.”
It doesn’t matter in that moment that Arthur and Eames had been trapped in Limbo due to an accident. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t begin by wanting it. What matters is that they had somehow led by example and Mal wanted to follow them so badly that she jeopardized everything she had in the real world.
Except the real world wasn’t enough, was it? Is it ever?
“Fucksake,” Eames breathes. “But it backfired, yeah? Because Dom incepted her along the way.”
“Exactly.”
“Did he know what he was doing?”
“I don’t think so,” Arthur admits. “I think he just wanted to fix it. He liked what they had in Limbo, but he knew. He knew the whole time it wasn’t real. Mal didn’t. And now I don’t think she knows if this is real either.”
“She’ll go mad,” Eames murmurs, hands stilling. “She’ll lose her mind.”
“She’ll lose everything if we don’t figure out how to reverse it,” Arthur points out quietly.
*
They keep quiet. Dom, the old friend, the father, the husband, is too far down to have to deal with the guilt of knowing what he did. Arthur knows he’ll realize it anyway. Sooner or later it’ll all come to light.
Arthur changes his hotel reservations from a meager twin standard to a king suite. Eames stays most nights. And when he doesn’t, they still call each other. It’s better this way. Much more durable and sturdy and safe, like the weight of a hand upon making a fist. It’s a little dangerous, too, in a different way, but altogether with the same meaning.
*
Finally, Arthur works up the courage to see Mal, so long as Eames joins him. He wears his nicest suit, flashes his kindest smile, and brings enough tea for the three of them. Mal sits at the breakfast bar, slicing vegetables for a salad when they come in.
“Bonjour Mallorie,” Arthur coos, swooping down to kiss her cheek. “I brought Eames. We haven’t seen you in quite some time, hmm?”
“A lifetime,” Mal notes. “It’s lovely to see you both. We’ve had another baby. His name is James.”
“Dom told us,” Arthur explains. “How are you?” he asks.
“I’m very much in love,” Mal says quietly. “So in love I can’t stand it. But it bothers me sometimes, how quickly I can forget it.” She pauses and then adds, “How do I know if this is real?”
Eames leans in very close to her, sliding his hand along her jaw and tipping her head up. “This is real, Mal,” he whispers. “Do you remember how Arthur and I were when we woke up? Hmm?” Mal nods. “We just needed to settle a bit. We took a bit of a risk going back to one another, but it’s worked out. We’re gamblers. We just happened to pick the right color on the roulette wheel.”
Mal meets his gaze and her chin trembles, eyes welling up in a weak attempt to keep herself from falling apart. Again. “I haven’t picked the right color, have I, Mr. Eames?”
Eames shakes his head, but not condescendingly. “You still can, though. This is real. You ought to know that it is. Certainly all three of us wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
Mal pulls away slightly, resuming the cutting of her vegetables. With a trembling hand, she slides her finger along the blade of the knife. “I don’t know if you’re real, either,” she admits. “Please go.”
Arthur tries to move her hand away, tries to gently pry the knife from her fingers. “Mal, we’re trying to help - “
She jerks back, catching Arthur’s forearm with the knife. “GO!” she shouts, screaming until Dom is there, quite suddenly. “Shh, shhh,” Dom breathes, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re okay, Mal. It’s okay.”
Arthur backs away silently, a little fearfully, clutching Eames’ handkerchief (he doesn’t remember Eames handing it to him) to his bleeding arm.
They leave without another word and drive home in silence, but Eames whispers soothingly as he bandages him up. It’s as romantic as they get these days, but it’s more than enough.
*
Dom calls the next day. “Listen, Eames, I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“No need to apologize. It’s been forgotten.”
Eames can hear Dom sigh over the phone and there’s the rustling of paper in the background. “I’ve made reservations for our anniversary,” he says. “It’s tomorrow. We always go to the same hotel, drink the same wine. I like it though. I hope it’ll help.”
“Sure,” Eames nods, though Dom can’t see it. Arthur comes up behind him, resting his head on his shoulder. “Arthur says hello.”
“My regards to both of you, as usual. I’ll let you know if there are any jobs coming up.”
“Don’t worry about that, Dom,” Arthur cuts in. “Mal is our priority. Enjoy your anniversary.”
“Thanks,” Dom says, though it doesn’t sound like he means it, and hangs up.
*
Arthur strips down to his boxers and climbs into bed next to Eames. There’s a quiet pitter-patter of rain against the window and a spot of light and shadows on the ceiling.
“I’m kind of glad it happened to us, darling,” Eames says, reaching over Arthur to turn out the bedside lamp. “Limbo, I mean. You’re quite lovely now that it’s happened for real.”
The rain still pelts heavily at the window, begging to be let in, to be allowed the chance to drown them.
Arthur says thank you and isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to respond with. But then he thinks quite vividly of the way Eames’ mouth looks when he says don’t think about elephants and Arthur falls asleep to it.
*
Eames gets the phone call close to midnight. It’s from Arthur’s cell, but he lets him sleep. Quietly, he slips out of bed and messily throws on a white button-down and a jacket. Dom is nearly incoherent, but the message is there, so clear that Eames feels like he can’t breathe. And it’s not for his sake, really. A little bit is. But mostly it’s for Dom and those two quiet children. And for Miles, too.
“Mal’s dead. Jesus Christ, Eames. She jumped. They think I - “
“Okay, okay. Hush now, yeah? Tell me where you are and I’ll be there.”
*
It isn’t until he’s standing in the lobby of the hospital that he feels like crying. Dom is holding his head in his hands, sobbing honestly and openly. There’s a cold, dead shell in a thin sheet on a hospital bed where Mal should be. He thinks about that damn vase Mal wanted him to steal and how angry he got because she’d had it the whole time. He should have laughed about it.
“She jumped, Eames,” Dom cries softly, out of the blue. “They made me identify the body.”
“It’s okay,” Eames murmurs weakly, his heart beating wildly in his chest, eyes threatening to well up.
“She was dead,” Dom shakes his head. “She’s dead. She’s gone. I should have jumped, too.”
“No, no,” Eames says. “Come now, we’ll see Miles and get it all sorted out, hmm?”
Dom sits in that awful, plastic chair for what feels like hours. But finally, he stands, looking like his knees will buckle under the weight of his grief at any moment.
*
Arthur is gone when Eames gets back. But Eames knows where to find him, naturally.
The alley is dark and still damp from the day’s rain. Arthur’s leaning against the brick and smoking, dressed in a black suit, the buttons undone to reveal a white shirt.
“Hey,” Eames says quietly, and when Arthur doesn’t answer, he rests his hands against either side of Arthur’s head, blocking him against the wall. “How do you know?”
Arthur looks down, looking far more vulnerable than Eames can remember ever seeing him. “I called you. I called Dom. Then I called Miles and he told me. She fucking jumped, Eames,” he murmurs.
Eames leans in even closer, prying the cigarette from Arthur’s shaking fingers. “Don’t do this, darling. It isn’t your fault.”
“It isn’t? I’m the one who didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I set up the compound. I’m the reason we ended up in Limbo. What did Mal want, Eames? Huh? She wanted to be us. She thought this whole goddamn time she was dreaming. How is that not my fault?”
Arthur’s cheeks are wet and flushed and Eames doesn’t say a damn word because he knows he looks the same. “If it’s your fault, it’s mine too.”
Arthur goes quiet at that, understanding that this is more than the blame game. This is Eames following after him and Arthur leading the way. This is both of them thinking very purposefully of elephants because they want to. Because they want each other.
“Why are you wearing this?” Eames whispers, smoothing his hand down the front of Arthur’s shirt.
“It’s for the funeral,” he sniffs. “It’s for the fucking funeral.”
Eames pushes his forehead against Arthur’s and presses a kiss against his nose, dropping the cigarette and pulling away just enough to step on the butt with his foot.
“Wash it first, you’ll smell like smoke.”
“Fuck you,” Arthur says, but with no real meaning.
*
The funeral is not as lovely as one might think it’d be. For Mal, anyway. There are half as many flowers as Arthur thought there would be and tens of people he’s never seen before. Dom isn’t there and neither are the children. Nor is Miles. In fact, Arthur feels like it’s just the two of them - him and Eames. As it is, his suit doesn’t smell like smoke anymore.
They keep their footing somehow, but Arthur goes home feeling like he’s falling.
*
“I was thinking of going back to Mombasa,” is the first thing Eames says the next day. Arthur’s already dressed and ready to go see Miles, and Eames has just come out of the shower, beater molded against his skin.
“Why?” Is the first thing Arthur thinks to ask. And then, “Don’t.”
“I need to clear my head,” he says, tossing the towel in the laundry hamper. “I can’t keep doing this, Arthur. We’re running circles around each other. Mal is dead. Okay? She’s dead. We need to move on.”
“So moving on means leaving?”
“One person is already dead because of what happened in Limbo. We need to get out while we can. I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.”
Arthur gapes at him. “You’re a fucking coward,” he seethes.
Inside, he’s thinking don’t leave and please don’t go and just stay for a moment longer.
Eames picks up a duffel bag from inside the closet that looks as if it’s been packed for days. “Mombasa is Cobol’s backyard. I’m going to learn a thing or two and fix this.”
“I don’t want you to fix it,” Arthur says weakly. “We’re okay.”
“Are we? Maybe Cobb was right. Maybe this isn’t healthy.”
“Don’t do this, Eames.”
“I’ve got a flight in the afternoon. I’ll call you to let you know I’ve arrived.”
“Fuck you,” Arthur says again. “Don’t bother.”
*
Eames calls. And even though Arthur doesn’t pick up, Eames still leaves a message.
*
For the first few weeks, Arthur dreams privately. But then, of course, there’s one phone call wedged in between that changes everything, as they usually do. Dom has flown out of the country and he needs Arthur for a job.
This is, naturally, the first time he’s seen Mal since she died, and she’s just as much of a ghost as she ever could have wanted.
Arthur has to shoot her in the head because Dom can’t, and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. He calls Eames that night and verges on bawling his eyes out and screaming at the bastard for leaving him.
“She was lovely, wasn’t she?” Arthur whispers. It’s three in the morning and he’s exhausted, too terrified to fall asleep because he doesn’t know what he’ll wake up to.
“Absolutely lovely,” Eames agrees, and talks to him until Arthur’s asleep on the other line.
*
Very quickly, Arthur becomes accustomed to being Dom’s right-hand man. He organizes the clientele data, sets up meetings with marks, and follows Dom’s leads with any experiments involving compounds. It scares him at first, because neither of them know what the hell they’re getting themselves into. But it never stopped them before, so they keep going.
Eames becomes a weekly phone call and nothing more. Arthur still hates him sometimes, but only because he isn’t here. Only because he’s there and too far away. He thinks of elephants all the time, not in the literal sense but in the way Eames meant for him to. He thinks of the both of them, shaved of a few years with a bit more vulnerability. How awful it must have been for them to lose themselves in a dream. And how lovely, too, for them to come out of it together.
He calls Eames for the last time in a pub in Ireland. He and Dom are flying out soon for an important business proposition.
“I miss you, you know,” is how Arthur starts out, because he means it. He really goddamn means it. And even if Eames doesn’t want to hear it, it has to be said.
“Are you drunk?” Eames asks softly.
“Fuck you. I didn’t drink anything yet.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” Arthur repeats. “Depending on how this phone call goes, I might get wasted.”
“I miss you too.”
Arthur goes quiet for a moment, thinking back on the day they woke up, how they spent all that time clutching at each other in a too-small bed because they needed to.
“I think you should work with Dom and me. Can I tell him you’re available for jobs?”
It’s Eames’ turn to go quiet. He sighs. Arthur imagines he’s rubbing a hand over a stubbled jaw. “The important ones I’ll be available for.”
“They’re all important,” Arthur adds.
“To you.”
“Yeah.”
It’s quiet again for a long time. Arthur stares at the clock and listens in on other people’s conversations. Nothing interesting.
“Well, I have to go,” he says.
“Sure,” Eames says. “Arthur - hey, I’ll be there if you need me to be.”
It isn’t the most romantic thing Eames has said, but it means a hell of a lot more than Arthur can put into words. Especially right now. Elephants, he thinks, and walks back to his hotel in the rain.
*
*
*
“If I tell you not to think about elephants, what do you think of?” Arthur asks. He leans forward just the slightest and if anyone knew to look for the signs, they could see the way his eyes lose just the slightest bit of light.
Saito says elephants and Arthur pretends to look pleased, but he isn’t. He’s not happy at all until, a day later, Dom tells him they need a forger.
Mombasa, he thinks. Eames is in Mombasa and Dom is going to get him.
It’s the happiest he’s been in weeks.
*
There is a quiet architect with much to give and just as much to take. She reminds Arthur of Mal only in the sense that they’re both very maternal. Mal used to be that way, before.
It began with an ocean, sure, but the Fischer job threatens to drown them in a tsunami of grief. Along the way, Arthur says things like “she was lovely” and “goodnight Mr. Eames” and he can’t trace the origin of that fondness. Doesn’t matter though, because a young heir has a pinwheel in his hand and all of them wait on the shore of Dom’s life.
He doesn’t surface. And when the kick comes, Arthur thinks bitterly that it’s very, very ironic. And also very romantic, just as Mal would have wanted.
*
Dom is in a coma. Arthur pretends he’s not grieving. For a moment, he isn’t. For a moment, Eames is right there, pinning him against the wall like he did in the alleyway. It’s been too long since he’s seen him last, really seen him. He looks good.
“I missed you,” Arthur murmurs.
“You’re too sad these days,” Eames says. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“It’s my fault, remember?”
“Fucksake, Arthur, it’s our fault.”
Eames pauses. He brushes his thumb over Arthur's cheek and then says, "I missed you too."
There’s a lot for Arthur to be unhappy about. A lot. Mal is gone (she’s dead, Jesus Christ, she’s dead) and Dom is stuck somewhere in a dream he doesn’t want to leave. He’s worried. Arthur is terribly, horribly worried about everything. But Eames is here. Eames. He’s centimeters from his face and always an arm’s length away when he needs him to be. They’re still two halves of a whole, aren’t they? Mal knew that best. Beautiful, lovely, confused Mal.
“Arthur,” Eames murmurs, the word stretched taut and verging on the tremble of a stutter. "What are you thinking about?"
Elephants, he thinks, and lets Eames kiss him.
fin.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading, first of all. This piece took a lot of energy out of me. Thank you to my beautiful, wonderful cheerleading f-list, particularly withlightning and knowmydark. You two are simply amazing. Another big thank you to leviicorpus for being a wonderful, speedy beta. And finally, thank you to almostgaby for consistently asking if I needed anything and for inspiring me to no end. I sincerely hope you like this.