inception fic: go up to the resting place (1/3)

[indysaur]

Go Up to the Resting Place
Inception: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG13
18,752 words
A not-quite AU, in which instead of a PASIV, they use magic to break into dreams. Some foundational inspiration from Fables, but this is a pretty different, and, let's be real, lesser thing. Arthur and Eames are good at being strangers.



But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.
Be on your guard!
-  The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Arthur is careful to speak.

****

"Quickly," Arthur remembers Eames saying, "quickly, quickly."

"Dear Eames," Yusuf had said, the calmness in his tone belied by the pressure with which he was gripping Arthur’s forearm, "Patience."

"Dear Yusuf," Eames had said, his voice slipping into the worn-smooth groove that was his mocking register, "cast a damn spell if you have to, just wake us up."

"You know he isn't a spellcaster," Arthur had interjected. He reached with his opposite hand to pry gently at Yusuf's grip. "We're at the mercy of the thorn."

"There are better ways to sleep," Eames muttered. "I don't know why we continue to rely so on our beauty here."

"Because I'm reliable," Yusuf snapped.

"What he said," Arthur agreed. He turned to face Yusuf, took Yusuf's hand. Flipped it so the palm was facing up, watched a drop of blood bead at the center. "There," Arthur said.

Eames looked over Arthur's shoulder, watched the pinprick tip of a briar thorn work its way out of Yusuf's palm. "Lovely," he said.

"You can keep us hidden us for a few seconds more?" Arthur asked Eames.

"Yes," Eames said, then said to Yusuf, "Does it hurt?"

"You ask that every time," Arthur glanced up at Yusuf's face, the sweat breaking across the man's brow. "You're fine, aren't you?"

"Yes, I will be. As long as you don't let go," Yusuf replied.

"Such talented hands," Eames said.

"Shh," Arthur said firmly, soothing. He felt his way down the nerves in Yusuf’s hand, their branching paths. It still feels like a revelation after all this time: how easy it can be, sometimes, to put aside pain.

****

Arthur had known Eames long before they had been introduced by Izanami, but it was only afterwards that they became something like friends.

Izanami travels. She’s wiser in the ways of worlds, but some of that leads to pretension, which Arthur can't blame her for but is amused by anyway.

"You say amused when what you really mean is annoyed," Eames noted.

"Keep your armchair analysis to a minimum. It'd be polite to at least pretend discretion."

"Why shutter my insights when there's so much more fun to be had by parading them?"

"It is ostentatious," Izanami says.

"As is using the word 'ostentatious'," Eames said. He quirked his eyebrow, touching thoughtfully at his lower lip.

Arthur refused to smile. “Back to business, if there aren’t any objections," he said. "Izanami, what can we do to help you?"

"There are benefits to a world revealed by magic rather than science," Izanami began, and it was all Arthur could do to keep from rolling his eyes.

"Gatekeepers and bridge-builders," Eames had said later, after Izanami was gone. "Whether it's a rainbow or ice or a beam from the moon, they walk from here to an impossible there and think they're gods."

"It's a pretty impressive power," Arthur said, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. He frowned at the missing cuff link, wondering whether he'd lost it, or had entirely forgotten to put one in this morning. The latter would be a slip.

Eames scoffed, snapped his fingers: a gleaming gold pin appearing in the space between his thumb and knuckle, which he then handed to Arthur. "Oh, you love the mole sauce at that restaurant?" he said, adopting a voice. "I suppose it's fine, I just really can't be impressed with anything outside of Mexico since the time I backpacked across Central America."

"It's hardly the same," Arthur said, unable to stop a quiet laugh. He put on the cuff link, nodded his thanks.

"It's exactly the same," Eames said, stretching, the bottom button of his shirt now conspicuously missing, exposing a slice of taut belly. Eames noticed the direction of Arthur’s gaze, raised an eyebrow. "I can't create something from nothing, you know."

Arthur looked away, occupied himself with confirming he had his runes in his pockets, the weight of the die. "Except for flirtations."

"No," Eames said. "Not even that."

****

Eames will tell his own stories sometimes.

“Once,” he’d said, “there was a man who walked the Pacific coast, where the river meets ocean. So virile was he that one glance from him could get a woman pregnant.”

“Hmm,” Arthur had said. He’d heard this tale before. He’d forgotten where.

“It sounds more dazzling than it is.”

“Does it sound very dazzling?” Arthur wondered.

“Well, of course it all depends on context, but virility can be admired in certain circles. Lustiness recognized. It’s when it begins to descend into licentiousness that most everyone will scoff.”

“These all seem like grades of the same thing.”

“Ah,” Eames said. “But it’s the gradations that are so important.”

Arthur had looked up at him, only just catching up to the sudden seriousness of Eames’ tone. Eames, who was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “You have a strange way of trying to impress.”

“That isn’t what I’m trying to do,” Eames said.

“Then what?” Arthur waited, then shrugged. “I’ve heard this story before by the way. It’s a good call to repeat it. When your material is this good...” He whistled.

Eames smiled, sat back in his chair, the fabric of his pants stretched tight across his thighs. “I can introduce a few new details, if that’s what you’re hinting at, Arthur.”

Arthur ignored him, returning to his papers.

Eames sighed. “Anyway,” he said. “The people chased him away, kept him far from their villages for his keen reproductive powers.” He scratched across his chest, his big hand, the chewed tips. His nails glowed a bit, buffed and polished nearer the nail beds.

“Fuck,” Arthur had said with feeling, “the vulnerability behind your mask. How true after all, that every blessing can be a curse.”

“Now, Arthur. These are the little lonelinesses that come with everything that makes us unique,” Eames said, and slapped his thighs, came to his feet.

*****

Arthur grew up with six sisters, all of them older but one. He learned from his kind of family how to stand out quickly; already put in the open by the fact of the dick between his legs, Arthur figured he should take the start given to him and put as much distance between himself and his tall, laughing sisters as he could.

Not in a cruel way, Arthur wants to be clear about that. He loves his sisters. It’s just that five older siblings means that there are so many already-beaten paths ahead of you, and Arthur had always liked to do his own clear-cutting. There is a satisfaction to be had in shaping the world.

He fell into dream-walking later, after setting himself apart became an obsolete and foreign pursuit. There was potential in the calling. So many different ways to sleep, whether they be apples or lake water, brambles or a ghost ship crew’s liquor. Arthur was canny, not cautious, and he learned what he could from the people he worked with and kept moving, always an eye on the prize.

The second time he met Eames, Eames looked at him and said, “For fuck’s sake, hold still,” and Arthur, all the vibration went out of him.

Careful, Arthur remembers thinking.

****

Arthur uses a prism that he’d filched from Izanami that last time she’d been orating. He finds a good, cleared-out space in the city. Not the transit-meadow, mostly because it’ll be so trafficked, and Arthur doesn’t feel like sharing his road with someone who happens to be going in the same general direction he is.

He holds the prism up to the sun, watches it catch, then flicks it to the ground, like a lit match he wants to keep from burning his fingers. It bows up, seven colors springing into the air, and Arthur steps up and on, walks.

Izanami falls into step with him halfway to his destination. “Thief,” she says accusingly. “You might have asked.”

“Asking’s so pedestrian.” Arthur shrugs. “You can have it back after this.”

She nods.

They walk in silence for a bit. Bows aren’t Arthur’s preferred method of travel, but there’s something fine about them when you have one to yourself. The black sky below his feet.

Izanami walks like she’s been burdened, her hands clasped behind her back, her head bent forward, looking at the ground a few steps ahead. She’s tall, though, and once in a while, her arm will brush Arthur’s shoulder, and he’ll note the tone of the muscle, estimate her reach.

Arthur only realizes he’s reached his destination when he stumbles onto asphalt, hard on his soles. He turns to Izanami. “Thanks for walking with me,” he says.

“Don’t steal from me again,” she says.

“It’s beneath me, anyway.”

She nods. “You aren’t bad company,” she says. She straightens up, stretches a bit, then cocks her head, as if she’d heard her name. “I should go.”

“Don’t your feet ever get tired?” Arthur asks.

Izanami already has her back to him. “What does it matter? I only go where I want to go.” She turns again for a second, tosses a piece of glass towards Arthur. “Here,” she says. “This one you can keep.”

“That’s nice.” He’s surprised.

“Out of the goodness of my heart. Because you didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t ask for the other one either,” Arthur points out, then: “I mean, thank you.”

****

Arthur has sex with Eames after the second job they pull for Izanami together. Mostly because he isn’t able to talk himself out of it. When he told Eames that, Eames said, “Flattering.”

“I can’t tell you to feel flattered or not,” Arthur said. “But it was intended as a compliment. I talk myself out of fucking almost everyone I meet.”

Eames reflected. “You know, in your own way you’ve learned to live alone as thoroughly as I have.”

“And you were worried we didn’t share any common ground.”

Eames raised up onto one elbow in bed, blinking blearily. “The life looks worse on you. I bring a a charm and noble-bearing to it.”

“You bring an accent to it.” Arthur busied himself with his tie.

Eames fell back onto his pillow. “It’s a good thing I’m much less discriminate in choosing partners than you are. Otherwise it would have taken an act of god to get the two of us into bed.”

Arthur came over, braced a hand on Eames’ chest and bent down to kiss him. “Now who’s the flatterer,” he asked.

****

Eames took Arthur out to lunch the day after. They were still working a job: extracting a true name, or something else like that. Arthur forgets the details -- he packs his head full with every new job, and wipes the slate clean after.

Lunch, they went to some Burmese restaurant that was bustling, full of people who didn’t work by choice and through privilege, grabbed two seats at the bar. They chatted and it was easier than Arthur had expected.

Later, Eames told him that he takes everyone he works with out to lunch alone. He likes to know who he’s joining hands with. “And besides, everyone surprises you a little.”

“What surprised you about me?” Arthur asked.

“What an embarrassing question.”

“Fuck it,” Arthur said. “I want to know.”

Eames laughed. “You talked more than I thought you would. You were practically conversational. I didn’t expect that.”

“And what were you correct in expecting?”

“That you’d want to talk about trivial things. Health policy, the pros and cons of freelancing, my shoes. Your last date.”

Arthur curled his lip. “I sound terrible.”

“Don’t you, though?” Eames said, in full agreement. He waved both his hands in Arthur’s direction. “And yet, paradoxically.”

****

Eames wanders often, going from here to there, usually on foot. He likes to traverse terrains. From what Arthur hears, sometimes Eames will stumble upon someone he likes, and they’ll go to bed, and then Eames will trick them into giving something up before moving on. A good breakfast, sometimes; virginity, others. Rings.

The egregiousness varies with some rhyme, some reason.

Eventually, Eames will wend his way back to Arthur’s bed. He’ll greet Arthur with a kiss, and then pull away and sigh. Arthur will watch his shoulders loosen.

“You again,” Arthur will say.

“It sounds very fond when you say it like that,” Eames will say.

Then Arthur will say, “It’s not meant to,” and kiss him again. Eames has nice lips, and it doesn’t bother Arthur as much as it should, that they’re beginning to feel familiar.

****

This is strange.

Eames is lying in bed, naked and above the sheets. Just airing everything out. Arthur is sharpening a halberd. It’s more ornamental than anything, but it’s nice to keep an edge on those types of things. Remind them of their true intention.

Eames had braced a foot on Arthur’s back, and Arthur when he finishes with the stone, leans away from the pressure, slides the halberd under the bed where it’ll be out of the way until he’ll go to hang it again, and falls back onto one arm, slaps at Eames’ dick.

“Christ,” Eames says. “Careful.”

Arthur says, “I don’t need to be careful with you. I’ve heard the stories.”

“Stories of what.”

“The wool you pull over people’s eyes. Your impervious nature.”

“Go on,” Eames says, his lips curved up. “What else do you hear about me?”

“That your lies lead to harm, but enough times bear out into kindness. What a line you walk,” Arthur says, looking up at him and laughing. He stretches his throat up and croons out a low howl.

Eames slips his fingers into Arthur’s hair. “And what if I began to tilt to one direction? What if I wanted to be more admirable than not?”

Arthur looks away, rests his forehead against Eames’ thigh. His hand on Eames’ opposite knee.

“What if I want to be all good, and not at all evil?” Eames asks, his voice a little louder, lilting.

“It’s not in your nature,” Arthur points out.

“Why isn’t it?”

Arthur sits up, then, feeling tugged just a bit from his sockets. “It isn’t.”

“You seem scared that it might be.” His eyes assessing.

Arthur stands, stretches. He reaches for the halberd under his bed, his head in the blue dark, his arm outstretched and searching for steel.

“I could tell a story of you, too,” Eames says.

****

Arthur dreams of Cobb, which is very far out of the ordinary. It’s been a long while since he’s heard from him. They’re in a nondescript field, broad expanses of ankle-high grass, a breeze skittering across the blades, sending them rustling. No one but the two of them for miles.

Arthur closes his eyes, and opens them, puts the two of them in the middle of a restaurant that Cobb used to like to frequent in Westwood, packs it full of patrons. Projections at the ready in the case that this Cobb isn’t one Arthur had conjured up.

“Good, Arthur,” Cobb says, approvingly.

Arthur shrugs, smiles at the waitress who’s appeared at their table and asks for a glass of water. He looks at Cobb, the way he leans forward onto his forearms, his big hands clasped together. He’s handsome. It always takes seeing him to remind Arthur of that. Arthur lets the silence grow.

“Arthur,” Cobb finally says. “We should talk.”

“Okay,” Arthur says. He takes off his coat, drapes it over the empty seat next to him. “Let’s talk.”

And then it’s Cobb’s turn to fall silent. He’s busying his fingers with something, toying with it under the shadow of his palm.

“Jesus, this is ominous.” Arthur rolls up his sleeves. The dream is odd, but he’s spent at least a few weirder nights with his cryptic-as-fuck subconscious.

Cobb nods at Arthur’s bared forearms, watches as Arthur loosens his tie. “Are you getting ready to throw a punch.”

Arthur smiles, lets it shrink slow over his teeth. Cobb is still hiding something in his hand. “No,” he says. “Well. I don’t intend to yet, but it never hurts to be prepared.”

Cobb shakes his head at that, but he smiles, too, then leans back in his seat, relaxing, and it’s then that Arthur extends his arm, claps one hand over Cobb’s, which is lying face-down on the table.

“What’s that you’re playing with, Dom?” he asks, then turns Cobb’s hand over, sees the top.

Arthur’s projections turn to look as one, and the waitress comes striding over, a steaming carafe of coffee in hand. Arthur waits for her to reach them, to smash it against this intruder’s head.

Instead, she flips Arthur’s mug over, fills it with coffee to the brim. “Cream?” she asks. “Sugar’s on the table.”

Arthur’s grip on Cobb loosens in surprise. “No, thank you.”

She nods, touches Arthur’s sleeve, then walks away. Chatter breaks out across the room again.

Arthur sighs, lets his head fall back a bit, weigh heavy on his neck. “I hate dreaming naturally.” He straightens, drags a hand across his face, sips at the coffee. “There’s too much uncertainty. I like to know what to expect.”

He pulls his coat off the seat next to him, looks it over, piece-by-piece. Finds a gap where the arm is pulling loose from the torso of it, and frowns. He digs into his pocket and finds the sewing kit he keeps there amongst his other runes, pulls out a needle and thread.

Cobb’s keeping quiet, and Arthur can still feel the brief wash of adrenaline that had come with the concern that this was an extraction. That suspicion hasn’t entirely left, but it’s of a low enough grade that Arthur would like to continue sleeping, dream or no. He’d been tired this evening.

He repairs the tear in his coat. There's always been something calming about the pull of thread, of putting an error to rights.

He hears Cobb order for the both of them, but when the food arrives and Arthur looks up, Cobb is gone.

****

In the morning, Arthur wakes up the sound of someone yelling outside of his window.

“Get out of the fucking street,” she shouts. “You can’t play in the street, how many times have I told you?” And kids laugh, laugh, laughing.

Arthur looks at both palms, traces the smoothness there, the lack of any ache left behind by a thorn.

Eames comes out from the adjoining bathroom, a billow of steam with him. He’s rubbing a towel against his hair, tosses it aside, and then sits at Arthur’s hip, running a hand along his beard. “Should I trim this?” he asks.

Arthur reaches up and tugs at it hard.

“Steady on,” Eames says. “Hands.” He grips Arthur’s wrist, presses it against Arthur’s stomach, then leans down to kiss him. “Did the racket wake you?” he asks.

Arthur kisses Eames back. Thorns aren’t the only way to get into another’s dream, he reminds himself. It wouldn’t hurt, really, to be guarded.

****

Arthur has become a kind of waystop for people who can’t see an actual healer for this reason or another. He hadn’t intended it, and it’s often actively an inconvenience, but there are upsides: Arthur likes gathering favors to call in.

When he’s not on a job, he doesn’t bother trying to hide, and the broken arms, the burnshot, petrified and fleshtorn are a steady stream.

In the afternoons, when Eames comes to Arthur’s for shelter from a high sun, he watches, and Arthur introduces him as “a disciple who came to study at my feet. What they don’t tell you about hero-worship is how humbling it can be.”

Eames just grins like a dope, then clasps his hands behind his back and looks over Arthur’s shoulder, very serious.

Arthur likes treating bones best. He counts, “1,” wrenches an arm back into place with a grunt, then finishes, “2, 3.”

“My god,” Eames says. “You’re not exactly Florence Nightingale.”

“Sometimes the body requires an application of force,” Arthur says. He sighs and falls back against the wall, gloved hands at his sides.

Eames shakes his head. He moves in front of Arthur, his eyes steady. He reaches up and puts a stray lock of hair back into place. “Interesting,” he says.

Arthur smiles.

Eames cocks his head toward the man behind them. “This one fainted,” he says, dry.

****

Arthur keeps dreaming of Cobb. He makes a call.

“I never knew you felt that way about me,” Cobb says, his visage hazy in the pool.

“I don’t.”

“How naked do I get in these dreams?”

Arthur grimaces. “Not at all naked. My subconscious shows me at least that mercy.”

“So it’s strictly a romance,” Cobb muses. “Do I sweep you off your feet? Are there flowers and jewelry and gifts of deadly weapons?”

“The restoration of your humor isn’t as welcome a development as you might think.”

Cobb laughs quietly. “Arthur,” he says. “It’s nice of you to call. I’m fine.”

“For now,” Arthur says, and then regrets the import.

“Then if I won’t be fine in the near future, I’ll have been well-warned.”

“In my dreams you’re obsessive about your totem. Again. That fucking spinning.”

“Okay, Arthur.”

Arthur fights the instinct to rattle the calm in Cobb’s tone. He sets his jaw, nods to himself. “Okay.”

Cobb sighs, and Arthur watches him rustle idly through a book. “We agreed, Arthur. Silence means that things are fine, or that we’re beyond each other’s help.”

“Yes.” Arthur touched at the small sewing kit in his lapel pocket, imagined the glint of his needles.

“I hope that you won’t hear from me in a long time. I hope I won’t hear from you.” And then nothing but empty water, clear straight down to the bone-white bowl.

****

Eames is a fucking nightmare. He cheats at cards, which is painfully ridiculous, and does it down on the waterfront to be as much of a cliché as possible.

Eames comes walking into Arthur’s apartment, throws a jacket onto Arthur’s couch. He nods at Arthur, says, “Hello, sweetness,” then makes his way to the kitchen, rummages through the refrigerator.

He reappears with an apple and knife in hand, leans against the counter. Arthur narrows his eyes. “You look like you’re expecting someone.”

“Not at all. What’ve you mixed yourself up in today?”

Arthur stands. “Are you--”

He’s interrupted by the crashing of three men through his door, and Arthur swings around, grabs the heavy-bottomed tumbler he’d been drinking from and hurls it at the head of one of the men rushing Eames.

Eames catches a fist to the stomach, doubles over, then slams a knife into his attacker’s thigh.

The man Arthur beaned is on the ground, and Arthur steps hard on his kidney and then on his neck. He looks up for the third, but Eames has him by the nape and is smashing his head against Arthur’s counter top.

“Don’t get blood all over my fucking apartment,” Arthur says, slightly winded.

Eames drops the man, raises both hands.

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” Arthur says then.

****

They fight about it. “Don’t you think it’s too fucking easy for you to cheat at cards?”

Eames’s smile is as thin as one on that mouth gets. He pulls a card from what seems like nowhere, makes it flicker, from club to heart, and back again. “Just because something is easy doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.” He’s fucking sparkling. “Haven’t we earned a drink, you and I?”

“So why didn’t you lose these assholes instead of leading them back here?” Arthur demands. He’s down to his undershirt, holds a knife wound on one of the goons’ stomach closed, concentrating, and watches it knit together slowly.

“They were a long time angry. They would have found me sometime.” He’s found tumblers, unbroken ones, holds one out to Arthur. “Why delay?”

“Jesus, I don’t want a fucking drink, alright?” Arthur knocks his hand away. “You didn’t even try to slip them, did you?”

Eames wipes a spot of blood from his jaw with his arm. “Your place could do with some redecorating.” He points. “Only just a splash of red, and the whole flat is transformed.”

****

Arthur is dreaming again. He’s impatient with it, and switches the setting: hamlet, to island, to fortress, to stream. He’s sitting with Cobb, and the world keeps changing around them.

“Why do you think you keep dreaming of me?” Cobb asks.

Arthur lies back in the grass. There are a half-dozen reasons not to do it when he’s awake. He’s almost never wearing clothes he can afford to get a stain on. It appears child-like in the extreme. More.

“You’re going to make yourself motion sick,” Cobb says.

“Do you want to hear a story?” Arthur asks. He watches the shifting sky as it clicks from view to view. “Once, there was a man named Dominick. He was one half of a whole. When things were good between him and his other half, they were perfect. When they were bad, it was cataclysmic.”

Clouds stream overhead, a backlit, glowing white.

“And when the day came that he disagreed with her about something fundamental, they split down the middle. She disappeared. All that was left was his shadow.” He looked down at Cobb’s back, the spread of it. “You used to be a two-headed god. Was I supposed to watch your back forever?”

Cobb’s head lowers. “Do you always tell the story like that?”

“It’s a cautionary tale,” Arthur says, and he looks back up at the sky. Like this, he can pretend he’s alone here, waiting to wake up.

“Then tell me your mythology. It’s only fair.”

Arthur laughs. “Mine’s a cautionary tale, too.”

****

Eames looks like he’s still sleeping when Arthur wakes up. His broad chest rising and falling under Arthur’s sheets. Arthur forgets how long he’s had this place. He forgets where he bought this bed they’re in.

Eames seems peaceful, but then he wakes up with a gasp, eyes flying open. Arthur rears back, carefully holds himself out of the way until Eames settles.

“Bad dream?” Arthur asks.

Eames sits up, rubs at his eyes. “A good one. Left too soon.” He smirks in a way that reminds Arthur of those times when Eames is performing for someone, the composed jocularity.

“Liar.”

“Call me that every time and you may be right one in two.”

Arthur shakes his head, gets out of bed, goes to his closet. He fingers the jackets hanging there, the fine weave.

“Wear something adorable for me today,” Eames says from bed.

Arthur goes to the doorway. He looks at Eames disheveled. “You’ve been here for a longer time than usual,” he says.

Eames laughs. “Are you worried that I’m missing out on trouble to be had?”

“No,” Arthur says, feeling very serious. “I don’t worry about that.”

****

He speaks with Yusuf. “I can’t put a finger on what’s making me so damn prickly.”

Yusuf nods. “It’s more difficult to share a dream with someone if one isn’t in proximity. But not impossible.” He crosses his arms. “And you don’t know what an intruder may be after?”

“Does it matter?”

“Easier to protect one thing than everything.”

Arthur feels himself smile. “I disagree.”

“Ha,” Yusuf says. “Very terrifying, Arthur.” There’s the sound of a cat, and Yusuf looks down, murmuring.

“I--” Arthur begins. “You wouldn’t sell me out, would you, Yusuf?”

Yusuf turns back to Arthur. “I would ask a very high price,” he says coolly.

****

Arthur has concerns, and he feels justified in them. Hasn’t Eames always been known to lie? Aren’t all his kindnesses easy for him, giving away things that were never his to begin with?

“I steal from the rich to give to the poor.” Eames is very and deliberately casual.

“I don’t mean to question your character.” Arthur sighs. “I don’t want to.”

They’re talking quietly, in the lobby of Arthur’s building. Eames looks out of place in a such an everyday setting. He has, as Mal had said so admiringly once, a distinctiveness, no matter the context.

Arthur is standing very straight. He has his hands in his pockets, drawn up to his full height. He had made independent inquiries, of course. Had checked up on people who thought of themselves as his enemies, sought out word.

“Arthur,” Eames says. “Out with it. What do you want to ask me?”

“My dreams. I might have mentioned; the ones with Cobb.” Arthur keeps his tone clipped. “Something isn’t right about them.”

“Okay,” Eames says.

“Have you heard anything?” Arthur licks his dry lips. “Is someone running a job on me?”

This smile grows on Eames’ face. He scratches at one eyebrow with his thumb, exhales through his nose. “No one’s come skulking around, no.”

“Are you?”

Eames laughs at that. “Bald,” he says. “I like the look on you.” He shakes his head. “No, darling, I’m not.”

Arthur nods, feels a little knot in his back squeeze tighter, strangely. “I’d understand if you were upset that I asked.”

Eames mulls over that. He lets his fingers brush Arthur’s wrist. “Better to have been asked than to deal with your wondering.”

Arthur smiles, jerky but sincere. “It’s the clockwork in my brain.” Raises a finger. “Tick, tick, tick.”

“Yes, well.” Eames leans in, presses a firm kiss to Arthur’s cheek. “I’m going to bed somewhere else tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Arthur pulls back, looks Eames in the eye.

Eames laughs again, this quieted rumble. “Yes, but it’ll make the both of us feel better. For tonight at least, you’ll be blissfully alone.”

Arthur nods his assent, and the knot in his back slackens, a genuine bit of relief.

Eames walks away, nearly to the door, before he doubles back. “What is it, exactly?” he asks. “The dreams. Why so sure they aren’t the product of your subconscious?”

“They might be.” Arthur stays tight-lipped. “Who knows.”

“Right.” Eames hums thoughtfully. “Alright, then.”

Arthur lets his posture slump a bit. His hands are cold. “This went better than I was expecting. Can I tell you that?” He laughs.

Eames smiles back at him. “Yes, you can tell me.”

****

He has a dream that night, too.

He’s training. San Shou kickboxing in an abandoned plaza. The buildings remind him of Lyon. It could be disquieting, how silent and emptied the city’s been, but Arthur concentrates on his form, his technique, his bare feet gripping the stone underneath.

He works himself to exhaustion, to the point where it’s difficult to think. He has to stop, catch his breath as he tries to remember the next sequence. He steps into a resting stance, centers, pushes into a Tai Chi form.

“Step through. Good. Keep your upper body relaxed, light. Your torso should float over the movement in your lower body. Good. Raise the right leg. And hold this position.”

Arthur holds, looking forward. Arms bent, hands at the ready. He breathes freely, feels the sweat slipping down his forehead.

A hand at his back. “Straighten up here. Let the tension bleed from the shoulders. Your foot planted, all your weight traveling down into the ground.”

It’s Cobb’s fucking voice. Of course it is.

Cobb comes around, stands a comfortable distance from Arthur, looks on with his arms crossed in front of him. “Could anybody move you?” he asks.

Arthur drops his leg. He rests his hands on his hips, breathing hard. “Cobb doesn’t know the first fucking thing about Tai Chi.”

“It seems a very mysterious art,” Cobb says, amused.

“Fuck off. What would be the point if it wasn’t practical?”

“You should really stretch before these sessions,” Cobb says. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

****

Eames stays away for another day, then another. That grows into a week, and Arthur begins to figure that Eames has finally set to wandering again. They have interludes, Arthur reminds himself. It’s what works best for them, and anyway, Arthur can’t be distracted.

He’s grateful, he supposes. He requires focus, this close to the finish line. There’s a job that he’s been running for far too long, with a deadline fast approaching.

****

Arthur wakes up in his empty bed, and brushes his teeth quickly, pulls on a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. He’s out the door within ten minutes, running the path that he used to take, sometimes, with Eames. He lets his feet feel fleet.

There’s a trail that maws open at the side of the sidewalk, after a mile or so, and Arthur turns. He forgot to bring a water bottle, but there’s a fountain here, which will serve.

Eames is standing there, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand. “Look at you,” he says.

Arthur doesn’t expect to feel pleased at the sight of him, can’t stop the smile that bleeds onto his face.

“You look flushed,” Eames says.

“It’s hot.”

Eames dips a hand into the water flowing out the mouth of some stone creature. He flicks droplets at Arthur, and Arthur watches them glitter as they leave Eames’ hand. A tiny snowfall. “Cool down, then,” Eames says, and then he smiles, too.

****

He and Eames run together for another hour, and at the tail end of the trail, they slow to a walk. The sun had come early, with a gentle and drying heat. “It was strange that first night away,” Eames says.

“Lonely?” Arthur asks with a laugh.

“Hm,” Eames says. He lets his hand graze Arthur’s, then catches it, his thumb against Arthur’s palm. “It was strange,” he says again.

Arthur’s thrown. “Did something happen while you were traveling, before you showed up at my door?” Arthur asks. “Are you--fuck. I don’t know. Are you healthy?”

“Maybe I’ve changed,” Eames says. He lets go of Arthur’s hand, bounces a bit on his feet. “But I wouldn’t trust it.” He turns Arthur a bit, kisses him briefly. “I’ve got an appointment to keep. See you.”

****

It makes Arthur glad that Eames has been so near, and anxious that Eames has been here so long.

This is Arthur at his most honest. You could press a finger to his skin, and lift, but you’d wait a long time for the blood to run back in, restoring paled skin back to its full flush. He carries those marks.

****

There’s someone at Arthur’s door when he comes home. Arthur sees the stranger from down the hallway and repositions his key -- metal between his knuckles.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Arthur?”

Arthur nods.

“I came to ask you in person. Call your guy off. There’s not a dreamer in town who’s heard about a job on you.”

Arthur relaxes. “This guy,” he says. “He shaped like a Brit?”

The man nods, then barrels along. “I’d ask you to take a look at my fingers, but you don’t seem in the mood.” He looks hopeful anyway.

There’s an unbidden ease beginning in Arthur’s chest. “Let me see.”

The stranger extends his arm, and Arthur takes a look at the index finger, the way it hangs. He grips it, then shoves it up firmly, hears the clack of bone. “Jesus Christ,” the man grits out.

“This will knit,” Arthur says, feeling very charitable, “if you hold still.”

****

Arthur calls Eames. The water churns for only a few seconds, then goes still and murky. It’s dark, silted through. “Hello?” Arthur squints.

“Arthur, fuck, hold on. I haven’t changed the water in god knows how long. Can you see anything at all?”

“No.”

“Shit. Can I get you back? I can run the sink in a minute.”

Arthur shakes his head. “It’s fine, don’t bother. I was only calling to remind you that many nights more than the one have passed.”

“Are you giving me permission to return to your home?”

Arthur flexes his toes inside his shoes. “Basically.”

“I would have come back anyway. I’ve run up quite a bill here at the hotel.”

“I’m not lending you money.”

“Just a penny or two. I can promise you won’t miss it.”

Arthur snorts. “We can talk,” he says neutrally.

“What a nice answer.” There is a settling in Eames’ tone. “I have my own money, you know.”

“Yes, I know.” Arthur touches the surface of the water, lets the tips of his fingers break that translucent skin.

“Did you dream last night?” Eames asks.

Arthur pauses. He flicks his fingers up out of the water, watches the arc of droplets. They fly up, then are drawn back to his hand, drip down his wrist, and return, restored, to the body of water below. “I don’t know why they shake me up so much,” he says, sidestepping a direct answer. “I guess didn’t think I could dream such pedestrian dreams.”

“What a blow to your conception of self as stunning enigma.”

“Thank you, I appreciate your condolences,” Arthur says, very sincerely, and smiles when Eames laughs.

****

Arthur takes a walk that night. He hadn’t been able to sleep very well, a rare thing these nights. There’s something almost novel about it. Eames was a stone beside him, and Arthur slipped out of bed, downstairs, then out into the street.

There’s a wind blowing, and Arthur hadn’t bothered to put a coat on. He blows on his hands, quick, then tosses the prism out, hurries onto the bow.

He’s only a little while alone. Footsteps behind him, and then Izanami, again, at his side.

“Jesus,” Arthur says. “Did you put a bell on me?”

“I watch for good companions. I walk very much.” Izanami, her head bowed, looks at Arthur, something nearly friendly in her face.

“I didn’t realize I’d count as a good companion.”

Izanami nods. “The lonely make do.”

Arthur grins. He looks down at the road like Izanami does. Watches his bare feet press, from heel to toe. “What would happen?” he asks. “If I stepped off the bow? All this black space around. Would I fall?”

“Are you curious enough to find out?”

“Not today,” Arthur says. “Have you ever been?”

“Yes, once,” and she ends the sentence with finality. She lets out a short breath, rolls her shoulders back. “So,” she says. “I hear Eames has recently waged a war on your behalf.”

Arthur laughs. “Did you hear that from Eames? Maybe a skirmish, at best, and that’s if I’m being generous.”

“You have trouble,” Izanami says.

“I’m having dreams of Cobb,” Arthur says, still laughing. “That’s a kind of trouble, I guess.”

“Hm.” Her pace slows. “You know I have a husband.”

“I’d heard.”

She looks accepting of that. “What else have you heard?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“The end. Let’s skip all the quiet in the middle.”

Arthur hesitates. “It’s only what I’ve heard,” then, at Izanami’s eyebrow, he continues, “You had a husband. He died. I’m sorry, by the way.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

Arthur lets his back bow. “He died, and you mourned him. Driven to madness by your grief, you traveled a hidden road and sought him out in the world below. Down, many levels. And you found him.”

“A joyous moment.”

“If only the story ended there,” Arthur tried to bring some levity to it. “Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yes, let’s finish. I found my most loved,” she prompts.

“Most loved.” Arthur’s sure step doesn’t falter. “Such was the depth of your love, and so dark was the world below, that your husband appeared unchanged to you. Even his reluctance to leave with you, to follow you into the bright light of day, you thought was...”

Izanami laughs here. “Based on unfounded fears? An entrenched stubborness? I don’t know. Nothing that mattered.”

“So you convinced him.”

“Yes.” She gets taller with every step.

“You told him that you would lead the way. He made you promise that you wouldn’t look back. But as you rose higher, and higher, and finally saw, there, the break of day, the possibility of relief and restoration so close at hand...” Arthur trails off again. “I don’t blame you, you know. I might have looked back, too.” Izanami doesn’t respond, and Arthur sighs, steps into the story again. “You looked back.”

“And he was monstrous.” Her voice thick.

Arthur shifts his gaze a respectful half-turn away from her. Avoiding his peripheral vision. “A corpse rotting. Without teeth; his flesh draped over his bones. Maggots.”

“I threw him from the road.”

“You struggled, and while locked together, he begged you to allow him to return.” Arthur licks his lips, his throat dry. “But then, yes, you threw him from the road.”

“There’s more, of course. But that is usually where they end the story.” Izanami pauses. “You told it well. You have a talent.”

“Thanks,” Arthur says. A mood had come and sat on his shoulders, and Arthur shakes to get it off.

“I don’t know your story at all.”

Arthur shrugs. “By design.”

“Your secrecy could provoke curiosity.”

Arthur smiles, rueful. “Yeah, well. I try to pretend I don’t have secrets.”

“That sounds difficult to work.”

“It’s been effective this long.” Arthur stretches, suddenly, his arms in front of him, cracking the bones in his fingers. “Do you ache? I think I asked you this before. I could give you my hands.”

Izanami looks taken aback. “I appreciate the offer. I’m fine.”

“It’s not a big deal. You did give me a prism.”

She smiles. “Are we exchanging kindnesses now? Will this make us even?”

“Close enough.” Arthur taps her pocket with his knuckles, hears the clatter of glass. “Though I started at a deficit.”

“Ah,” she turns, leads Arthur the way they came, back to home. “We will make that even, too, one day, I’d imagine.”

****

Eames is still asleep when Arthur gets in again. Arthur slips into bed as subtly as he’s able, but he can see Eames come awake, the roundness of movement under the thin skin of his eyelids.

Eames’ eyes don’t open, but he shifts more fully onto his back, takes in a deep breath, then lets it out noisily. “Where’d you get to?”

“You look almost innocent when you sleep. Did you know?” Arthur tugs at the sheet wrapped under Eames, then makes himself comfortable, lets a hand come up to slide into the short hair above Eames’ ear.

“Hmm,” Eames says. “My most cunning disguise.”

“News of your exploits as my sentry has traveled far and wide.” His hand sliding down, a thumb on Eames’ jawline.

“Sentry feels a bit demeaning, doesn’t it?”

Arthur touches Eames’ eyebrow. Drags a finger across the arch of one. “How long are you going to be staying?” he asks.

Eames opens his eyes. “It sounds like there’s an answer you want to hear.”

“There is.”

“Am I supposed to guess it?”

Arthur leans in, kisses him. Pulls away, then kisses him again, a hand on Eames’ neck.

Eames’ eyes are closed again. He stays close, and Arthur mimics his longer breathing patterns. “Let’s say it together, then,” Eames says. “On the count of three.”

Arthur waits for Eames to count, waits for Eames to inhale -- his chest curving, waiting to be filled with breath.

****

Arthur is in his closet. There’s a panel in the back. Behind it is a safe, inside of which there are things that hold at least a little value. And at the back of the safe is a hidden panel, and behind that is another safe, set deep into the wall.

In front of it all, Arthur’s jackets, hidden in plain sight. He’d made these, learned to tailor during a long stint overseas. He picks up skills easily when they’re important for him to know, and the construction of fabric spoke easily to his natural talents.

Arthur touches one of the empty arms, searches for any loose threads, the panel at his feet set aside for now.

He’s not sure what it is, exactly, that makes him realize that Eames is behind him. Arthur lets his hand fall to his side. He picks up the panel, replaces it over the exposed safe, smooths his hands over the edges so that they’ll disappear. He tries not to hurry.

He turns. “Jesus Christ,” he says, inflating his voice with surprise. “How long have you been there?”

Eames takes up most of the doorway. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“There’s a touch I’m losing,” Arthur says. He shakes his head. “That you could sneak up on me.”

“If you’re planning to remain easily surprised, here’s a tip.” Eames broadens his stance, lowers his center of gravity, hands out. “You’ve got to plant your weight. Catch the brunt of the blow low.”

Arthur steps toward him, then slams out with his foot, a side kick that Eames easily meets, But Arthur follows with a cross, his left arm a whip, stopping just short of lashing Eames’ temple.

“Good,” Eames says.

****

“There’s something of Mal in Izanami’s story, isn’t there?” Cobb asks.

They’re strolling through a preserve, the dusk the texture of chalk. Behemoth shadows against the horizon, moving in herds. Mammoths, elephants, rhinoceroses. “I don’t know,” Arthur says. “There’s a little of both of you.”

“We borrow, we borrow,” Cobb says. “Have you heard the ending I’ve heard?”

Arthur watches the herds grow nearer. Their raising and lowering heads. Their thundering.

“Though they were still struggling, it was clear that Izanami would take the upper hand.” This version of Cobb raises his voice, almost chanting it. “How her husband raged, then, when he was close to being overcome. But she only laughed, filled with disgust at his decay, and hot with victory.”

The glint of tusks and horns. Weapons to fall upon, to look down to find yourself pierced by, through and through.

“He screamed that he would bring destruction, a hundred times over, because of her treachery. But Izanami laughed again, and promised that she would restore and bless everyone he harmed, and their children besides, until the last day.” A pause. “Does ending it here make the story better or worse, do you think?”

“She made a decent vow.”

“Out of spite.”

Arthur shrugs. “Who cares?”

“Oh, Arthur,” in Mal’s voice, but maybe it’s always been Mal in this dream, the many dreams before. The way she used to burn bright on the other side of Cobb, lighting him up. It could have been her.

The animals are nearer. The sky smoked by dying embers. It’s hard to hear anything above the sound of stampede.

“You don’t think that she was taunting him?” Mal raises her voice above the din. “Isn’t there cruelty in what she says to him, when he is on the brink of losing her, torn to fury by the thought of being without her?”

“Maybe a little of that,” he says. “But there's also a pledge that her days would always in part be a reaction to him, that every day she would think of him, until the last day.” He knows a promise when he hears one. Knows, too, how they endure.

“What a generous interpretation.” Mal puts out a hand, and when the first of the elephants arrive, she catches it by the tusk, lifted into the air and lands astride the animal’s head.

“If I had been him--”

Mal shakes her head, cups her ear.

Arthur shouts. “If I had been him, I would’ve been comforted, I think. I could have been patient.”

“Really?” A shout back. “I wouldn’t have trusted it.” Thunder, and then the elephant rears, and the silhouette on its back goes broad at the shoulders, very and dearly familiar.

“You this whole time,” Arthur says, drowned out by the bellow, the din.

part two