[Inception] Storm, Port, Anchor
Title: Storm, Port, Anchor
Author: vikki
Characters: Arthur, Cobb
Wordcount: ~2800
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; swearing, some violence, heavy drinking; angst
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt here: Everyone believes Cobb got Arthur into the illegal extraction business, but it was actually the other way around.
i. Port
Arthur finds Dom in St. Petersburg two weeks later, holed up in a motel on the outskirts of the city. The manager shakes his head at Arthur's shaky Russian, but Arthur manages to convey who he's looking for and obtain a room number. It's late October and the wind has enough bite to it that Arthur turns the collar of his coat up, banging on the door with a gloved hand. "Cobb, it's me! Open up!"
There's no response for long enough that Arthur studies the door frame, trying to decide if he can force the lock, but then the knob rattles and the door swings away to a weary face, sunken blue eyes, stubble and the reek of alcohol. Dom says nothing, just steps aside to let Arthur in. The room is dark despite it being midday, the thick air raid curtains only motels and hotels use covering the window by the door. Arthur drops his chin when he wrinkles his nose at the smell to hide it behind his upturned collar; the room is overly warm, the heater cranked up excessively. When Dom lets the door swing shut, Arthur blinks against the strobing of the television, the only source of light in the room. It's muted, and from where Arthur's standing he can't see what's on the screen.
"When's the last time you took a shower?" Arthur asks.
Dom ignores this. "I told you not to come looking for me," he mumbles, brushing shoulders with Arthur as he shuffles back towards the only (unmade) bed.
Arthur shrugs his shoulder and slides his travel bag off it and to the floor. He's unaccustomed to simply inviting himself into Dom's space and while he turns down his coat collar, he can't bring himself to shrug it off; in the excessive warmth he starts to sweat at the back of his neck and the small of his back. "You clearly can't be trusted with yourself at the moment," he says, crossing the thin carpet until he can see the television screen. It's a news channel; everything written is in Cyrillic scrolling too fast for Arthur to decipher. Footage of a riot in a city Arthur can't identify, men yelling with their shirts waving over their heads like small war flags, a fire in the distance.
"I also didn't ask you to babysit me." Dom's voice is stronger now. In the flickering light of the television Arthur can see sallow cheeks; he imagines Dom's skin is too yellow, weathering the strain of a steady diet of vodka. He's rubbing his wrist, ostensibly watching the television, and Arthur abruptly realizes Dom took so long to answer the door so he could hide his PASIV.
He clenches his teeth and parts his lips at this, sucking a silent breath through his teeth, and says, "You shouldn't need it." He puts too much emphasis on the second word and Dom shoots Arthur a glance, but before he can retort Arthur unbuttons the top of his coat and reaches in, pulling both coat and suit jacket away from his chest to reach the inner pocket. "I'm just here to deliver something." He holds out two envelopes to Dom, bottom one thicker than the top one. "Open the first one."
Dom just looks at Arthur with narrowed eyes until Arthur shakes the hand holding the envelopes; he snatches them away, dropping the thick one in his lap and opening the first with trembling hands (not anticipation or fear, just too much alcohol). His eyes go wide at what he pulls out. "Arthur--"
"That's not for you," Arthur says coolly, but he's relieved to see Dom's reaction, something inside him uncoiling the slightest bit. "But I want you to think about what you see there."
Cobb's fingers tighten on the edges of the paper, thumb crinkling the sharp corner. "And the other envelope?" he asks, voice arch with more emotion than he's shown since Arthur arrived.
"Open that when you've cleaned yourself up," Arthur tells him. When Cobb still fails to look up, he takes a deep breath through his nose and lets it out, buttoning his coat back up and turning away. "I'll see you in three days," he says as he picks up his tote bag.
The wind is shocking and painful after the warmth of the room, but Arthur barely notices.
~*~
ii. Storm
Lithuania isn't a safe place for Dom to stay, and Arthur says so, hands folding over Dom's and drawing away the shot glass he's loosely wrapped his fingers around. "You can't settle," he says. "Or you will be extradited."
Dom runs his hand through his hair, not looking up from the wrought iron tabletop. The bottle of liquor he purchased and was left alone with was half-empty when Arthur met him, and the sight of Dominic Cobb slumped in a dark corner, newspaper at his elbow forgotten as he stares into space and fingers his glass, tightens a ball into the younger man's throat. They're both grieving, of course, and Arthur takes two shots with Dom before he refuses a third. Dom knocks it back like a pro just before Arthur takes the glass away.
"Where do I go?" Dom asks, tone wavering between pleading and dead. "Where in God's name am I supposed to go?"
Arthur answers the explicit question instead of the implicit one. "Someplace where extradition is all but impossible." Dom snorts at that and Arthur sighs. "Cobb ... send your kids to Paris. I can accompany them; Miles will look after them. You know he would."
"Don't talk to me about my kids when I'm this drunk," Dom protests, rubbing his eyes with his thumbs.
"When are you not this drunk?" Arthur asks, keeping his voice light, but Dom glares at him anyway for the (correct) insinuation.
"I'm not sending my kids anywhere," Dom says stubbornly.
Arthur expects this answer and switches smoothly to a different tack. "Then you should stop drinking your savings away and figure out how you're going to send yourself home."
Dom might be heavily tipsy, but he still squints suspiciously at Arthur, leaning forward on his elbows. "Spit it out, Arthur," he demands.
"Corporate extraction," Arthur says, but before he even finishes saying the word Cobb's shaking his head.
"No. No, hell no. I'm not turning to crime," he hisses, "to clear myself of false charges." Then, because he's drunk, he adds, "You see the irony in that sentence?"
Arthur ignores him. "I've been asking around," he says, keeping his tone low in the smoky, nearly-abandoned bar, and Dom lets out a sharp bark of laughter, interrupting him: "You've been asking around? Did I ask you to do that?"
The coil of grief and sympathy in Arthur's chest whipcracks open, lashing out at that. "You're not my C.O., Mister Cobb," he hisses, fingers tight on the empty shot glass. He swallows his anger (so close to the surface these days) and forces his hand to relax. "If this were the army I'd get a Medal of Honor for dealing with your bullshit." It's been 56 days, and three weeks Dom's been on the run, and Arthur didn't have to follow Dom but he did.
"I'm grieving." Dom excuses his behavior as he ever does.
"So am I," Arthur snarls. Dom's eyes darken with warning - she wasn't your wife, she didn't force you out of the country, you didn't spend 50 years with her in limbo - and Arthur closes his eyes. "But maybe because my grief is lesser, it's easier for me to see a clear path."
"To illegal extraction," Dom says, snorting, and reaches for the bottle of liquor. "That's terrific, Arthur. Thanks." He takes a direct swig and Arthur does nothing to stop him, watching him grimace as he swallows.
Arthur waits until his features have settled again. "I was asking around," he starts again, "and the work is surprisingly plentiful, and lucrative. Corporations will pay upwards of 100K, US dollars, to a team for extracting simple corporate information."
"It's an ethical nightmare," Dom replies, "and illegal in the United States, and I'm not becoming a criminal to get home. Understood?"
Arthur sits back in his chair, pushes his hips forward, and tilts it onto its back legs just a little. "Then tell me," he says, waving his hand, "how you're planning to return to Phillipa and James before they're in college."
Dom narrows his eyes and goes for the bottle again.
Arthur drops his chair back down onto four legs so fast it feels like a kick, jarring his knees, and snatches the bottle from Dom's hand. Dom flinches. "Dammit, Cobb, you don't have the moral high ground right now! You got that luxury in the university, but your kids are in a country you can never go back to--"
He's not surprised when Dom punches him (he's almost relieved), even if the blow is uncoordinated and weak with exhaustion and just rocks Arthur back in his chair, splitting his lip.
"Don't you dare say that," Dom snarls, pointing a finger that he nearly jams into Arthur's eye.
Arthur smears the blood from his lip with his thumb and pointer finger, and continues, "--you can't return to them, unless you face what dreamsharing was always intended for - screwing with other people's minds."
"Go the hell away, Arthur," Dom seethes, "and if you ever so much as think about showing your goddamn face to me again I'll--!"
"Get out!" It's the bartender, and he's apparently had enough with the American tourists on the verge of fistfighting in the corner of his bar. He waves his arms, face twisted with distaste, and says again in heavily accented English, "Get out my bar and go to home!"
Dom tries to get the bottle of liquor off the table as he staggers to his feet, but Arthur snatches it first and puts it on the bar. Dom glares at him, but when he pushes at Arthur he's unmovable and in the way so he just grabs his coat, slings it over his shoulders with an uncoordinated wobble, and slouches out.
Arthur puts down two hundred US dollars next to the mostly-empty bottle for the trouble and follows him, jogging until he's at Dom's shoulder, nearly bumping his elbow with each step. It's not too cold yet but compared to the empty, smoky bar, the breeze is nippy and fresh. Arthur can see it clears Dom's mind a bit, changes his gait. The cut on Arthur's lip is already starting to heal as mouth cuts always do and he rifles his pockets for his handkerchief to properly mop his mouth and chin.
"I don't care how lucrative it is," Dom says at length, his stumbling gait slowing until he can at least put one foot in front of the other, "it's wrong and I won't do it."
Arthur watches the back of Dom's neck and says, "I've taken a job." Dom's shoulders tense, and Arthur continues, "It's functionally bodyguard work, keeping the extractor safe and the projections distracted while he retrieves the information. But I've been promised ten thousand US dollars plus commission."
"And you trust thieves," Dom says, disgust lacing his tone.
"I have it in writing," Arthur confirms.
"And when they kill you in your sleep?" Dom's voice is tense.
"I'll wake up," Arthur quips, and Dom makes a hissing sound.
"I misjudged you, Arthur," he says. "I thought you were principled. Dedicated."
Yes to the latter, no to the former, Arthur thinks but doesn't say. "I never thought the PASIV was a noble scientific device, Cobb. I told you that when we first met."
"But illegal extraction. Entering somebody's dreams without their consent. That's ..." Dom runs a hand through his hair and lets out a frustrated noise. He comes to an abrupt halt, looking up at his hotel, and Arthur barely avoids bumping into him. "I'm too drunk to have an ethics argument with you." He twists, swaying slightly, to look at Arthur, who keeps his hands free of his pockets only to catch Dom if he stumbles. His eyes are clear but not properly focused. "You decide to do this, fine. But don't drag me into it."
Arthur sighs and doesn't say when your savings are gone and you're trying to avoid the law and you can't afford a plane ticket or a toy for your children, what will you do? because it's Dom, and it's not that he wants Dom to give up hope entirely, and anyway, Arthur won't let him reach that point. "You can't stay here, Cobb," he reminds his ex-boss. "Extradition."
"Yeah," Dom says tiredly, scrubbing his face. "Leave tomorrow. Can't do airport like this."
"Call me," Arthur tells him. "Can you get into your room okay?"
"Don't babysit me, goddammit," Dom grumbles, and turns towards the hotel entrance.
The message he leaves for Arthur the next morning says, I need some alone time. Need to figure things out. Don't come looking for me.
Of course Arthur does anyway.
~*~
iii. Anchor
The subject is Mr. Colin Gustav, age 41. He's the CEO of a Germany-wide chain of chocolat stores and was originally born in Switzerland, although his father was German. Raised in Germany from the age of twelve, he's always had a sweet tooth and started out as a baker for the company upon graduating from his secondary education. Although he never went on to college, he is also gifted with a head for numbers, and his rise within the company was swift. He married at the age of thirty, already rich although most of his money is invested away, and has a son who is nine years old who prefers to spend his time skateboarding.
It's his recipe for dark cocoa that's still mainstream sweet that Hershey's is after. But this being dream extraction, Arthur is busy memorizing the names of his coworkers and girlfriend from when he was twenty years old when he the door of the small office Arthur's rented is knocked on and swings open. He looks up at the unexpected intrusion and regards the newcomer wryly.
"The building secretary seemed to be expecting me," Dom says, wheeling a large suitcase in and shutting the door behind himself. "You don't look too happy, though."
His eye sockets are still hollow; his skin is still too yellow. But Dom's eyes are clear, he's shaved, and he's dressed in slacks and a suit jacket and button-down shirt and he looks ready for a day at the university office, casual dressy. The coil that loosened in St. Petersburg slips a little more, and Arthur startles himself by breathing deeply as if he's just come up for air. "I expected you two days ago," Arthur corrects him with a rush of breath like a sigh, but he can't help the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "But I suppose I can accept 'better late than never'." He settles his chair back on its legs and puts down his notebook on the desk, leaning forward to stand up. "You brought your PASIV device," he notes, nodding at the suitcase.
Dom glances down at it but doesn't comment, reaching into his suit jacket's inner pocket. "I have something of yours." He pulls out the envelope Arthur left for him in St. Petersburg, and Arthur takes it without looking, watching how Cobb can't meet his eyes. "It made a very persuasive argument."
"Yes," Arthur agrees, dropping his voice to be gentle. "A fifteen thousand dollar check tends to be."
But it's obvious how ashamed Dom is, his eyes lowered. The older man shoves one hand into his pocket and holds the suitcase handle with the other. "I still don't think this is right," he tells the floor. "As soon as I meet the right person, or get enough money, I'm done with this." He lifts his gaze and catches Arthur's eyes, resolute.
Arthur nods. "You're just making the best choice under the circumstances," he says.
"Exactly." Dom draws a long breath and lets it out fast, looking around the office suddenly. "It doesn't look like you have an architect yet," he says. When Arthur raises his eyebrows he continues, "How the hell do you plan to control the dream without an architect?"
"That's why Cosimo is hiring you," Arthur says, and Dom furrows his brow.
"What if I'd refused to come?"
Arthur declines to answer that question; he doesn't deal in 'what if's, only what is. He comes around his desk and sticks out his hand as if to shake Dom's, and it takes Dom a moment to catch on. "Welcome to the team, Cobb," he says.
He's a little startled when Dom tugs on his hand, pulling him closer, and claps his other arm around Arthur's shoulders in a sudden embrace. "Thanks," Dom says in his ear, "for being a port in a storm."
Arthur returns the embrace after a long moment. "Sure," he manages, relieved.
But he can't help thinking that the adage starts with any.
fin
Author: vikki
Characters: Arthur, Cobb
Wordcount: ~2800
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; swearing, some violence, heavy drinking; angst
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt here: Everyone believes Cobb got Arthur into the illegal extraction business, but it was actually the other way around.
i. Port
Arthur finds Dom in St. Petersburg two weeks later, holed up in a motel on the outskirts of the city. The manager shakes his head at Arthur's shaky Russian, but Arthur manages to convey who he's looking for and obtain a room number. It's late October and the wind has enough bite to it that Arthur turns the collar of his coat up, banging on the door with a gloved hand. "Cobb, it's me! Open up!"
There's no response for long enough that Arthur studies the door frame, trying to decide if he can force the lock, but then the knob rattles and the door swings away to a weary face, sunken blue eyes, stubble and the reek of alcohol. Dom says nothing, just steps aside to let Arthur in. The room is dark despite it being midday, the thick air raid curtains only motels and hotels use covering the window by the door. Arthur drops his chin when he wrinkles his nose at the smell to hide it behind his upturned collar; the room is overly warm, the heater cranked up excessively. When Dom lets the door swing shut, Arthur blinks against the strobing of the television, the only source of light in the room. It's muted, and from where Arthur's standing he can't see what's on the screen.
"When's the last time you took a shower?" Arthur asks.
Dom ignores this. "I told you not to come looking for me," he mumbles, brushing shoulders with Arthur as he shuffles back towards the only (unmade) bed.
Arthur shrugs his shoulder and slides his travel bag off it and to the floor. He's unaccustomed to simply inviting himself into Dom's space and while he turns down his coat collar, he can't bring himself to shrug it off; in the excessive warmth he starts to sweat at the back of his neck and the small of his back. "You clearly can't be trusted with yourself at the moment," he says, crossing the thin carpet until he can see the television screen. It's a news channel; everything written is in Cyrillic scrolling too fast for Arthur to decipher. Footage of a riot in a city Arthur can't identify, men yelling with their shirts waving over their heads like small war flags, a fire in the distance.
"I also didn't ask you to babysit me." Dom's voice is stronger now. In the flickering light of the television Arthur can see sallow cheeks; he imagines Dom's skin is too yellow, weathering the strain of a steady diet of vodka. He's rubbing his wrist, ostensibly watching the television, and Arthur abruptly realizes Dom took so long to answer the door so he could hide his PASIV.
He clenches his teeth and parts his lips at this, sucking a silent breath through his teeth, and says, "You shouldn't need it." He puts too much emphasis on the second word and Dom shoots Arthur a glance, but before he can retort Arthur unbuttons the top of his coat and reaches in, pulling both coat and suit jacket away from his chest to reach the inner pocket. "I'm just here to deliver something." He holds out two envelopes to Dom, bottom one thicker than the top one. "Open the first one."
Dom just looks at Arthur with narrowed eyes until Arthur shakes the hand holding the envelopes; he snatches them away, dropping the thick one in his lap and opening the first with trembling hands (not anticipation or fear, just too much alcohol). His eyes go wide at what he pulls out. "Arthur--"
"That's not for you," Arthur says coolly, but he's relieved to see Dom's reaction, something inside him uncoiling the slightest bit. "But I want you to think about what you see there."
Cobb's fingers tighten on the edges of the paper, thumb crinkling the sharp corner. "And the other envelope?" he asks, voice arch with more emotion than he's shown since Arthur arrived.
"Open that when you've cleaned yourself up," Arthur tells him. When Cobb still fails to look up, he takes a deep breath through his nose and lets it out, buttoning his coat back up and turning away. "I'll see you in three days," he says as he picks up his tote bag.
The wind is shocking and painful after the warmth of the room, but Arthur barely notices.
~*~
ii. Storm
Lithuania isn't a safe place for Dom to stay, and Arthur says so, hands folding over Dom's and drawing away the shot glass he's loosely wrapped his fingers around. "You can't settle," he says. "Or you will be extradited."
Dom runs his hand through his hair, not looking up from the wrought iron tabletop. The bottle of liquor he purchased and was left alone with was half-empty when Arthur met him, and the sight of Dominic Cobb slumped in a dark corner, newspaper at his elbow forgotten as he stares into space and fingers his glass, tightens a ball into the younger man's throat. They're both grieving, of course, and Arthur takes two shots with Dom before he refuses a third. Dom knocks it back like a pro just before Arthur takes the glass away.
"Where do I go?" Dom asks, tone wavering between pleading and dead. "Where in God's name am I supposed to go?"
Arthur answers the explicit question instead of the implicit one. "Someplace where extradition is all but impossible." Dom snorts at that and Arthur sighs. "Cobb ... send your kids to Paris. I can accompany them; Miles will look after them. You know he would."
"Don't talk to me about my kids when I'm this drunk," Dom protests, rubbing his eyes with his thumbs.
"When are you not this drunk?" Arthur asks, keeping his voice light, but Dom glares at him anyway for the (correct) insinuation.
"I'm not sending my kids anywhere," Dom says stubbornly.
Arthur expects this answer and switches smoothly to a different tack. "Then you should stop drinking your savings away and figure out how you're going to send yourself home."
Dom might be heavily tipsy, but he still squints suspiciously at Arthur, leaning forward on his elbows. "Spit it out, Arthur," he demands.
"Corporate extraction," Arthur says, but before he even finishes saying the word Cobb's shaking his head.
"No. No, hell no. I'm not turning to crime," he hisses, "to clear myself of false charges." Then, because he's drunk, he adds, "You see the irony in that sentence?"
Arthur ignores him. "I've been asking around," he says, keeping his tone low in the smoky, nearly-abandoned bar, and Dom lets out a sharp bark of laughter, interrupting him: "You've been asking around? Did I ask you to do that?"
The coil of grief and sympathy in Arthur's chest whipcracks open, lashing out at that. "You're not my C.O., Mister Cobb," he hisses, fingers tight on the empty shot glass. He swallows his anger (so close to the surface these days) and forces his hand to relax. "If this were the army I'd get a Medal of Honor for dealing with your bullshit." It's been 56 days, and three weeks Dom's been on the run, and Arthur didn't have to follow Dom but he did.
"I'm grieving." Dom excuses his behavior as he ever does.
"So am I," Arthur snarls. Dom's eyes darken with warning - she wasn't your wife, she didn't force you out of the country, you didn't spend 50 years with her in limbo - and Arthur closes his eyes. "But maybe because my grief is lesser, it's easier for me to see a clear path."
"To illegal extraction," Dom says, snorting, and reaches for the bottle of liquor. "That's terrific, Arthur. Thanks." He takes a direct swig and Arthur does nothing to stop him, watching him grimace as he swallows.
Arthur waits until his features have settled again. "I was asking around," he starts again, "and the work is surprisingly plentiful, and lucrative. Corporations will pay upwards of 100K, US dollars, to a team for extracting simple corporate information."
"It's an ethical nightmare," Dom replies, "and illegal in the United States, and I'm not becoming a criminal to get home. Understood?"
Arthur sits back in his chair, pushes his hips forward, and tilts it onto its back legs just a little. "Then tell me," he says, waving his hand, "how you're planning to return to Phillipa and James before they're in college."
Dom narrows his eyes and goes for the bottle again.
Arthur drops his chair back down onto four legs so fast it feels like a kick, jarring his knees, and snatches the bottle from Dom's hand. Dom flinches. "Dammit, Cobb, you don't have the moral high ground right now! You got that luxury in the university, but your kids are in a country you can never go back to--"
He's not surprised when Dom punches him (he's almost relieved), even if the blow is uncoordinated and weak with exhaustion and just rocks Arthur back in his chair, splitting his lip.
"Don't you dare say that," Dom snarls, pointing a finger that he nearly jams into Arthur's eye.
Arthur smears the blood from his lip with his thumb and pointer finger, and continues, "--you can't return to them, unless you face what dreamsharing was always intended for - screwing with other people's minds."
"Go the hell away, Arthur," Dom seethes, "and if you ever so much as think about showing your goddamn face to me again I'll--!"
"Get out!" It's the bartender, and he's apparently had enough with the American tourists on the verge of fistfighting in the corner of his bar. He waves his arms, face twisted with distaste, and says again in heavily accented English, "Get out my bar and go to home!"
Dom tries to get the bottle of liquor off the table as he staggers to his feet, but Arthur snatches it first and puts it on the bar. Dom glares at him, but when he pushes at Arthur he's unmovable and in the way so he just grabs his coat, slings it over his shoulders with an uncoordinated wobble, and slouches out.
Arthur puts down two hundred US dollars next to the mostly-empty bottle for the trouble and follows him, jogging until he's at Dom's shoulder, nearly bumping his elbow with each step. It's not too cold yet but compared to the empty, smoky bar, the breeze is nippy and fresh. Arthur can see it clears Dom's mind a bit, changes his gait. The cut on Arthur's lip is already starting to heal as mouth cuts always do and he rifles his pockets for his handkerchief to properly mop his mouth and chin.
"I don't care how lucrative it is," Dom says at length, his stumbling gait slowing until he can at least put one foot in front of the other, "it's wrong and I won't do it."
Arthur watches the back of Dom's neck and says, "I've taken a job." Dom's shoulders tense, and Arthur continues, "It's functionally bodyguard work, keeping the extractor safe and the projections distracted while he retrieves the information. But I've been promised ten thousand US dollars plus commission."
"And you trust thieves," Dom says, disgust lacing his tone.
"I have it in writing," Arthur confirms.
"And when they kill you in your sleep?" Dom's voice is tense.
"I'll wake up," Arthur quips, and Dom makes a hissing sound.
"I misjudged you, Arthur," he says. "I thought you were principled. Dedicated."
Yes to the latter, no to the former, Arthur thinks but doesn't say. "I never thought the PASIV was a noble scientific device, Cobb. I told you that when we first met."
"But illegal extraction. Entering somebody's dreams without their consent. That's ..." Dom runs a hand through his hair and lets out a frustrated noise. He comes to an abrupt halt, looking up at his hotel, and Arthur barely avoids bumping into him. "I'm too drunk to have an ethics argument with you." He twists, swaying slightly, to look at Arthur, who keeps his hands free of his pockets only to catch Dom if he stumbles. His eyes are clear but not properly focused. "You decide to do this, fine. But don't drag me into it."
Arthur sighs and doesn't say when your savings are gone and you're trying to avoid the law and you can't afford a plane ticket or a toy for your children, what will you do? because it's Dom, and it's not that he wants Dom to give up hope entirely, and anyway, Arthur won't let him reach that point. "You can't stay here, Cobb," he reminds his ex-boss. "Extradition."
"Yeah," Dom says tiredly, scrubbing his face. "Leave tomorrow. Can't do airport like this."
"Call me," Arthur tells him. "Can you get into your room okay?"
"Don't babysit me, goddammit," Dom grumbles, and turns towards the hotel entrance.
The message he leaves for Arthur the next morning says, I need some alone time. Need to figure things out. Don't come looking for me.
Of course Arthur does anyway.
~*~
iii. Anchor
The subject is Mr. Colin Gustav, age 41. He's the CEO of a Germany-wide chain of chocolat stores and was originally born in Switzerland, although his father was German. Raised in Germany from the age of twelve, he's always had a sweet tooth and started out as a baker for the company upon graduating from his secondary education. Although he never went on to college, he is also gifted with a head for numbers, and his rise within the company was swift. He married at the age of thirty, already rich although most of his money is invested away, and has a son who is nine years old who prefers to spend his time skateboarding.
It's his recipe for dark cocoa that's still mainstream sweet that Hershey's is after. But this being dream extraction, Arthur is busy memorizing the names of his coworkers and girlfriend from when he was twenty years old when he the door of the small office Arthur's rented is knocked on and swings open. He looks up at the unexpected intrusion and regards the newcomer wryly.
"The building secretary seemed to be expecting me," Dom says, wheeling a large suitcase in and shutting the door behind himself. "You don't look too happy, though."
His eye sockets are still hollow; his skin is still too yellow. But Dom's eyes are clear, he's shaved, and he's dressed in slacks and a suit jacket and button-down shirt and he looks ready for a day at the university office, casual dressy. The coil that loosened in St. Petersburg slips a little more, and Arthur startles himself by breathing deeply as if he's just come up for air. "I expected you two days ago," Arthur corrects him with a rush of breath like a sigh, but he can't help the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "But I suppose I can accept 'better late than never'." He settles his chair back on its legs and puts down his notebook on the desk, leaning forward to stand up. "You brought your PASIV device," he notes, nodding at the suitcase.
Dom glances down at it but doesn't comment, reaching into his suit jacket's inner pocket. "I have something of yours." He pulls out the envelope Arthur left for him in St. Petersburg, and Arthur takes it without looking, watching how Cobb can't meet his eyes. "It made a very persuasive argument."
"Yes," Arthur agrees, dropping his voice to be gentle. "A fifteen thousand dollar check tends to be."
But it's obvious how ashamed Dom is, his eyes lowered. The older man shoves one hand into his pocket and holds the suitcase handle with the other. "I still don't think this is right," he tells the floor. "As soon as I meet the right person, or get enough money, I'm done with this." He lifts his gaze and catches Arthur's eyes, resolute.
Arthur nods. "You're just making the best choice under the circumstances," he says.
"Exactly." Dom draws a long breath and lets it out fast, looking around the office suddenly. "It doesn't look like you have an architect yet," he says. When Arthur raises his eyebrows he continues, "How the hell do you plan to control the dream without an architect?"
"That's why Cosimo is hiring you," Arthur says, and Dom furrows his brow.
"What if I'd refused to come?"
Arthur declines to answer that question; he doesn't deal in 'what if's, only what is. He comes around his desk and sticks out his hand as if to shake Dom's, and it takes Dom a moment to catch on. "Welcome to the team, Cobb," he says.
He's a little startled when Dom tugs on his hand, pulling him closer, and claps his other arm around Arthur's shoulders in a sudden embrace. "Thanks," Dom says in his ear, "for being a port in a storm."
Arthur returns the embrace after a long moment. "Sure," he manages, relieved.
But he can't help thinking that the adage starts with any.
fin