Broken Toy, 1/2
Title: Broken Toy
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~4900 (~11,000 overall)
Rating: R
Summary: Eames is broken and the team doesn't know how to put him back together.
Warnings: References to noncon situations.
Author's Note: Written for the fantastic inception_kink prompt: As dream technology spreads throughout the underground, heavyweights in prostitution rings begin to take notice-especially of the famous Forgers of extraction. Eager to be the first to reach this new market, they begin to hire Forgers left and right, only to find that most of them aren't good enough to meet the specific needs of their clients. And so, they all set their sights on the best Forger in the business: Eames.
Also available in podfic form! (Thanks, emilianadarling!)
The streets were cobblestone and lined with old brick buildings, Tower Bridge looming in the background. The building itself was marble and had a massive, ornate fountain that looked like the Trevi Fountain in gold outside. Inside, it looked like every description of Las Vegas hotels Cobb had ever heard. He took it all in with an architect's eye, not an extractor's. Extractors had already been here and ferreted out every secret the place could hold.
"Eames," he murmured gently under his breath, even though there was nobody to reproach but projections around him. Eames had built from memory. He'd never been an architect. Goddamnit.
It would just make things more difficult, that was all. Not impossible, Cobb thought, thumbing the smooth top in his pocket, just bloody difficult...
He took a seat at the bar and drank his scotch neat. It burned a path down his throat, Cobb's brain filling in the sensation with perfect accuracy. Fingers twitching restlessly against the cool glass, he slipped one hand into his pocket, pulled out the top, set it on the polished bar and gave it a spin. It wavered momentarily and then straightened, tiny lights flickering off its surface.
The young brunette woman who slid onto the stool at his side had a soft voice and a hand that felt light and cool on Cobb's thigh.
"Buy you a drink?"
Cobb took another sip of scotch without answering right away, just gazed into the amber liquid for a few seconds. When he looked up, his eyes went straight past the blank-faced bartender to the mirrored surface behind rows of hanging glasses. There was no woman next to him. Only Eames, his eyes downcast and his fingertips drumming silently against the surface of the bar.
"Eames," said Cobb softly.
No response from the woman on his right. In the mirror on his left, Eames' brow furrowed just a twitch, not with any recognition. Behind them, the casino flashed the bright lights of a hundred slot machines, echoed with whirring pings and jangling sounds and the murmuring of a thousand projections.
"Do you know me?" Cobb asked, finally turning to face his companion.
A hush fell over the entire casino. The bartender stopped wiping out a glass and looked straight at him. Cobb could feel the intent stares of every projection in the room prickling at the back of his neck.
The young woman gazed intently into his face. "Of course I know you," she murmured, but it was another long minute before she said, uncertainly, surprised, "Cobb."
The silence broke. The other people at the bar went back to chattering, the bartender turned away, the casino came back to life as though it had momentarily lost power and now the generators were grinding back into gear.
"You don't need to disguise yourself for me, Eames," Cobb said quietly. "That's not what I came here for."
He -- she? -- smiled ruefully, not looking him in the eyes. "I'm not sure I know how to be myself anymore, love."
Love. Cobb had never been on the receiving end of one of Eames' terms of endearment before. That honour had always been Arthur's. Hearing it now made his skin crawl in an unpleasant way. It sounded wrong, somehow. Sounded off in some way, like it had passed its expiry date and gone stale.
"Look. Look in the mirror," Cobb urged gently.
"There are no mirrors here."
"I know. That's why I made one for you."
Eames followed Cobb's gaze and saw the mirrored surface behind the bar. Cobb watched his reflection stare into its own eyes, reach up a hand to touch its cheek. The conversations behind them were dying out like lightbulbs flickering out one by one, the hush starting to settle over them once again like a pall.
Eames removed his hand from Cobb's leg. His voice was low and familiarly husky and weirdly calm. "Cobb, what are you doing here? I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
"You're dreaming, Eames. You've been dreaming for a very long time now."
"Didn't you know, Cobb?" said Eames. "We were always dreaming. I thought you might have guessed, of all of us. Reality's a myth, darling."
The top was still spinning, lights were still bouncing off it, tiny glittering stars on its silver surface.
"There's a reality," said Cobb. "And it's waiting up there for you. We're all waiting for you, me and Arthur and Ariadne."
"I'd have thought Arthur would come in person," said Eames dryly, reaching out and plucking a toothpick off the bar. He played with it in his deft fingers, fiddling with it distractedly. "Given that it's my dream."
Cobb didn't know what to say, how to tell him that Arthur hadn't wanted to come in person. Hadn't wanted to see the state of Eames' subconscious, or invade and pry it open even further than it had already been forced, or have to explain to Eames that he was real, solid; not just the figment of a fevered mind.
"It's time to wake up, Eames," Cobb told him. He checked his watch. "Nearly time."
Eames had snapped the toothpick in four places, so that it splintered up and down like a broken bone. "I appreciate your coming, Cobb. I'm glad it's you sharing my dream, for the moment. But you're waiting for a kick that's never going to come, darling. Perhaps you'll land in another level. Your own dream. But I won't be coming with you."
"We're waiting," said Cobb. The long hand of his watch moved so slowly. He unstuck his throat. "Waiting for a -- kick, and -- I know where it's going to take you."
"And where's that, dear Cobb?" Eames looked at him, finally, with dead eyes. Unreachable eyes. Eyes of a man who had retreated into the very darkest space in his mind and was not going to come out, all his reactions and casual words automatic, sleepwalking.
"Home." The hanging glasses in front of the mirror began to click together. The lights above them flickered. The projections had turned away again, the low buzz of conversation carrying on regardless of the growing rumble. Cobb tossed back the last swallow of scotch and got to his feet. Held out his hand. "Come with me, Eames."
There was a swelling, rising crescendo of noise. Low, rumbling horns. The opening notes of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, pulled out into long, dragging notes; notes that caused the briefest flicker of life to appear in Eames' eyes. Only for a moment. He could hear the music and since it was his dream, Cobb could hear it, too.
"What is that?" he asked. Cobb snatched up his still effortlessly revolving top and pocketed it.
"Arthur," he answered simply, and then the ceiling was ripped apart in a cataclysm of noise. He felt Eames grab onto his hand in the instant before he jolted awake. The building was on fire. There were three corpses on the floor, all with a neat, round bullet hole in their foreheads.
Arthur was gripping him by the forearm and pulling him to his feet, cradling a heavy rifle in the other arm. "Did you find him alright?"
"Yeah," Cobb gasped, reflexively touching the firm weight in his pocket. "Is he waking up?"
Arthur pointed. Eames was sprawled on the stained mattress, just as they'd found him, in ragged jeans and a worn t-shirt that was a size too big for him. But now his eyelids were flickering, his breaths coming harsher and faster, fingers twitching against the stained bedspread. The various IVs and catheters had been yanked out of his body.
"Let me." And then Arthur was hefting the rifle into Cobb's arms, and he leaned down, pulling Eames to his feet and hooking the forger's arm firmly around his shoulders. Eames seemed non-responsive, but managed to stay on his feet, weaving slightly. Arthur pulled a spare handgun out of his waistband and cocked it. His expression was, as usual, perfectly, chillingly calm. "Let's go."
They fought their way out, through the security and the flames and the choking black smoke. When they staggered out onto the street, Arthur shifted his grip on the gun and reached down to punch the detonator in his coat pocket. The building buckled with the force of the explosion, sending up a pillar of dust and smoke into the sky. Arthur had always liked to play with his C4.
They piled into the white van Yusuf had left idling next to the curb. One more getaway, Cobb had asked him, for Eames' sake. They couldn't do it by themselves. Yusuf had booked the next flight out. He peeled into the road before they'd even slammed the door shut.
Eames' eyes were open and glassy, far away. He was covered in sweat and starting to shake, Cobb realized.
"Arthur," Yusuf yelled over his shoulder, peeling in and out of traffic. "Give him the sedative now."
Arthur nodded once, grabbing up the kit on the floor of the van, but Eames' eyes had suddenly flown open at the word sedative.
"No," he choked, jerking away and lashing out when Arthur lifted a glistening needle. "No. Please, no more, please, please, don't--"
Cobb grabbed him by the arms as he started to rise, hauled him in against his chest and held Eames' arms behind his back before he could strike at Arthur. Arthur's expression didn't so much as flicker. He pinned Eames' legs with his knees and gripped Eames' wrist when Cobb released one of his arms. A dry sob escaped Eames as he watched Arthur slide in the needle in, helpless. Then it was gone, and Arthur flicked it wordlessly back into the kit and grabbed a cotton ball to press against the welling spot of blood on Eames' arm, and by then Eames was already slumping back into Cobb's chest, his limbs going slack.
Cobb caught his breath for a few moments and met Arthur's eyes over the sedated forger's head. Arthur didn't have a strand of hair out of place, didn't even look a fraction as shaken as Cobb felt. He simply raised a questioning eyebrow at Cobb's stare.
Well. Cobb had known this wouldn't be easy when Arthur first asked for his help. He just wished he knew what the hell was running through his point man's head at that moment.
+
They went back to the warehouse, of course. The drive from Germany to Paris was long and they kept Eames sedated for every leg of the trip, and then again when they arrived. It was a compound for dreamless sleep, Yusuf had told them, and it would help Eames with the gradual transition from virtual coma to consciousness without the pain of withdrawal.
Eames fought every time he had to receive the injection again, apparently not caring about the promise of dreamless sleep. In the few moments when he was awake, he begged, sobbed, raged, fought them, and -- most painful of all -- offered them sex, if only they'd stop. Before long Cobb and Arthur had their restraint method down to an art, Cobb holding him down while Arthur administered the injection.
"I don't like this," Cobb confessed after one ordeal.
Arthur had looked at him, a bruise already forming on his cheek where Eames had struck him. "It's for his own good," he said.
Cobb knew that already. He didn't have to like it. He sat back in his chair, placed the top on his desk, and twirled it. It spun prettily and toppled over.
"Where are we going to keep him?"
"Why not Ariadne's place?" Yusuf said. He'd just walked into Cobb's office. They both looked at him, and he shrugged. "It's cosier. Being that she actually lives here in Paris all the time."
"And he's probably had enough of men right now," Cobb added quietly, scooping his top up.
Ariadne, right on Yusuf's heels and carrying a grocery bag full of food, snorted. "You don't think women would take advantage of that kind of service?" she said. When all three of them wordlessly transferred their gazes to her, she flushed. "It's an equal opportunity hate-on. Anyway, I don't mind him staying with me."
"No," Arthur interjected flatly. He looked down at Cobb's desk and tapped it distractedly. "We don't know what kind of state he's in. He's had a lot of violent sex pushed on him over a very long period of time and I don't want him redirecting that at Ariadne."
Her cheeks flushed even pinker. Trust Arthur to cut straight through their meandering thoughts without skipping round the point.
"He can stay with me," he added, still not looking up.
"No," said Cobb, scrubbing a hand tiredly over his growing stubble. "Look, I don't think it's a good idea for him to share a space with a man right now ..."
"Then it's settled," said Ariadne, shrugging, and setting down the bag of groceries. She looked at Cobb. "We all stay at the warehouse."
Cobb couldn't form much of an argument against that, and Arthur couldn't, either. So they left the office and started rearranging tables and boxes, forming little walls, trying to cordon off a space that could be just Eames'. Arthur dragged in a deck chair that would serve as a bed and Ariadne made it comfortable with a duvet and crocheted blankets from her flat.
"Look, Eames," she said, the next time he regained consciousness, leading him to the corner they'd set up. "You can sleep right here. And we'll be right over there, okay? None of us are going to leave you."
He sank, eyes bloodshot and unfocused, onto the end of the deck chair, looking as though he hadn't heard her at all. Cobb quietly beckoned her away as Arthur approached, indicating for her to leave.
"Eames," said Arthur, in a low, gentle tone.
Eames blinked up at him blearily, like a drunk. Once again, Cobb kind of hated them for doing this to him. And then something unexpected happened: Eames' gaze seemed to focus, and there was a spark of recognition in there.
"Darling," he rasped.
"Yeah." Arthur settled onto the chair beside him, their thighs brushing comfortably together. Eames leaned his head in, tiredly, his forehead almost touching Arthur's. He reached out and splayed his fingers over Arthur's knee. Arthur's gaze flickered sideways towards Cobb and he swallowed, and for the first time Cobb saw something almost like regret in his eyes.
Arthur covered Eames' hand with his own, the one not holding the syringe behind his back.
"Eames," he said again, steadily. "You know why I have to send you to sleep, don't you?"
"Yes," Eames said. And Cobb (foolish, hopeful Cobb) actually thought this time might go peacefully before the scene inverted upon itself abruptly in an ugly way. Eames went on huskily, "So you can fuck me, darling," and his hand came up to grip Arthur's hair so he could lean in and crush their lips together.
For a second Arthur seemed to be frozen in shock. Cobb was, too, his folded arms sagging slightly. Then, dropping the syringe onto the floor, Arthur pressed both hands to Eames' chest and shoved him away, hard. So hard that Eames fell onto the floor and grunted in pain.
"You're a fucking tease, Arthur!" he bellowed, twisting over on the floor, breathing like he'd just had his windpipe ripped open. "Go on, then, keep pretending! You don't have to fucking pretend with me! You don't have to!"
He was trying to get up; Arthur and Cobb suddenly unfroze. Cobb grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back and shoved Eames flat with a knee in the small of his back while Arthur went for the syringe. Now Eames was sobbing, a choked, broken-glass sound that whistled straight up from his lungs, and laughing at the same time.
"Is this because I'd forgotten what you looked like? Arthur, put the syringe down and I'll never forget again, darling. I'll hold your face in my mind and I'll never let it go. Please put the syringe down, don't do this, Arthur, pet, love, don't--"
With shaking hands, Arthur grabbed his arm and somehow managed to jam the syringe in straight. He depressed the plunger and as they watched, Eames' head lolled and he relaxed against the floor. His harsh, rapid breaths evened out.
Without speaking, the two men lifted Eames between them and laid him on his back on the deck chair. Eames looked almost peaceful, lying like that.
Cobb heard Ariadne give a soft sob behind them.
"It's for his own good," Arthur said forcefully, looking away. He stormed away before Cobb could stop him.
Ariadne looked at Cobb tearfully. "We are doing the right thing, aren't we?" she asked.
Cobb let out his breath in one slow rush. "He's out of that place now," he said quietly. "That makes it right."
+
The first night they spent in the warehouse, Eames had a panic attack at 1AM and started vomiting and clawing at his wrists as if to dislodge phantom IV lines, and none of them got any sleep after that.
+
In the morning Yusuf told them it would be safe to start weaning Eames off the drugs. Cobb went to him while he was still passed out, and started the delicate operation of replacing Eames' clothing, the jeans and shirt he'd been wearing for God knows how long.
Eames stirred while he undressed him, eyes only just cracking open. "I could be anyone you want, darling," he croaked. "Let me be Mal for you. D'you want to make love to her, as many last times as you want, yeah?"
Cobb shook his head, bit his lip and lost his nerve. Arthur stepped in smoothly to take over. Cobb hadn't even known he was there.
+
Arthur moved a lawn chair into Eames' corner, so he could sit with him during the long hours he was awake. He brought Eames an English newspaper in the mornings, and a pastry, and a steaming cup of tea that Eames would cradle in his hands until it turned cold. With Cobb supervising like a gruff mother bear, they took Eames to Arthur's flat so that Arthur could clean him up, get him into the shower and help to remove months of collected imaginary filth and blood. He did this without so much as blushing or faltering, as though it were simply one more duty a point man was expected to perform. Eames was tired and pliant under Arthur's hands. When he leaned in to touch Arthur's face, or try to kiss him again, Arthur would gently but firmly push him away and carry on whatever he was doing.
"You want to fuck me, Arthur," Eames breathed. Cobb could hear him, as he was standing right outside the bathroom with his arms folded over his chest, like a bouncer. He glanced inside. Arthur was patiently buttoning up Eames' shirt, shaking off the hands that Eames latched around his wrists. "I know you do. Just fuck me, Arthur, why don't you? Please?"
"It's the only language he knows now," Ariadne said later, chewing her lip, when the four of them were sitting around Cobb's office and Eames was drifting off in his corner again. "He was down there for, how long?"
"Almost four months," said Arthur mechanically. "Fifteen weeks. One-hundred and six days. There's one-thousand, four-hundred forty minutes in a day. That's two-hundred eighty-eight five-minute periods in a day, which is two-hundred and eighty-eight hours per day in the dreamscape, or twelve days. Multipled by one-hundred and six real days, that's one-thousand, two-hundred and seventy-two days in the dreamscape."
They all stared at him blankly, even Yusuf, who was usually quite good at calculating dreamscape to real time for the purposes of his trade.
"Almost three and a half years," Arthur clarified. "That's assuming they were using the regular compound, and that he didn't spend any time deeper than one layer."
"Jesus Christ," Ariadne mumbled numbly.
Three and a half years spent transfiguring himself, hour after hour after hour, to be used up and wrung out with no respite. No wonder the forger was confused as hell now. Cobb's gut gave a sharp twist. He was not the sort to leave any member of his team in the lurch. He should never have let Eames fall off the radar. He might have prevented this.
"He'll be okay," said Arthur, looking down at his hands, no real conviction in his voice. "I mean, once he's feeling stronger. And he's got bedsores, but they'll heal too. We just need to convince him that he's back in reality."
"And, you know, that we don't want to rape him," muttered Ariadne, half-stifling herself.
"Yes," said Arthur, his shoulders sinking slightly. "And that."
He didn't sound terribly hopeful.
+
On one morning Cobb woke up in his chair from what was probably the most cramped and uncomfortable sleep in his life, and he made a living out of sleeping wherever he happened to be. He could hear Ariadne and Arthur arguing just outside his office door, in the hushed voices of two people who are trying to whisper but may as well be yelling anyway.
"Look, I don't know what it is with you and your thing about ignoring other people's issues until they resolve them on their own," Ariadne was hissing, "but isn't this one kind of painfully obvious, Arthur!"
"I know it is," Arthur shot back. "I'm not ignoring it, for Christ's sake, just because I don't call attention to it at every opportunity--"
Feeling very rumpled and groggy, Cobb got up stiffly from his chair and opened the door. Both point man and architect looked away from each other quickly.
"What happened," said Cobb.
"Eames attacked him again," said Ariadne, her cheeks turning red. "Arthur basically broke his wrist."
"It isn't broken. I know what I'm doing."
"You're confusing him!" she said, struggling to keep her voice down. "He spent three and half years down there getting taken advantage of every other minute -- he doesn't know proper social norms anymore, Arthur. He doesn't understand why you don't want to -- do that to him. And he's trying to jump you before you can do it to him because that way he feels like he has some semblance of control over the situation."
Arthur glanced sidelong at Cobb, who understood that he was supposed to arbitrate here. He hesitated. For an architecture student, Ariadne had an innate understanding of the workings of her colleagues' minds that was second to none. She'd figured him out within their first shared dreaming session, after all.
"She's probably right," Cobb said quietly to Arthur.
"Well, I don't know what to do, then," said Arthur, throwing up his hands. He was trying to sound unruffled, but Cobb knew him well enough to hear the smallest waver in his voice. It surprised him, unpleasantly. Arthur was not a wavering-voice kind of guy. "Go back there, let him have his way with me, get it out of his system, Ari? What?"
"I don't know," she admitted resentfully. "I don't know what he needs. But you can't just push him away like that, you have to explain."
Yusuf was sitting at the desk nearby and listening. At this he got up and joined them, passing a cup of coffee to Cobb, who took it gratefully.
"Maybe there is something we can do," Yusuf started hesitantly. "You might not like the sound of it. But we could put him back to sleep -- design a dream for him where he can let himself relax. Better than sitting around in a chair here and getting injections twice a day."
The first mouthful of coffee almost burned Cobb's throat when he swallowed it unexpectedly and he started to cough. "No," he said, as soon as he could speak. "No. It's too risky. There's too many things he could introduce to the dream." Shades are too real, he thought with a pang.
"Then I'll go down with him," said Arthur immediately. Right now, for once, there wasn't much Cobb could decipher about his point man, but he was pretty sure he knew in that moment: Arthur wanted Eames to have a nightmare so he could blaze in and blow all the bad guys to hell, because at least it would be something. At least he might not feel so much like they'd gotten there too late.
"No," said Ariadne. "I'll go with him. It'd be easier for him with me there to hold the dream together. I can design it, make sure he doesn't change it."
They were looking at him, Cobb realized. He sighed. He wasn't Eames' therapist. He wasn't Eames' anything. Just his boss, on occasion, and Eames barely honoured that arrangement anyway.
"Yeah," he said finally. "It's worth a shot, I guess."
Yusuf brought them a milder sedative to give to Eames before putting him under, to help him relax in case the dreamscape proved stressful for him. Cobb went with Arthur to administer the injection, just in case, but for once Eames was quite passive about it, letting Arthur roll up his sleeve without struggling.
"I'm sorry about this morning, pet," he said when Arthur bent down to put the needle in. His hand slid over Arthur's, resting on the arm of the chair, and stroked, and Arthur froze. "You needn't be afraid to touch me, though."
Cobb could see Arthur trying to rally his thoughts with an effort, trying to remember Ariadne's advice.
"I don't want to touch you, Eames," he said after a pause, "not in that way. You have boundaries, you know. You're allowed to enforce them."
"Oh?" said Eames dryly. "Pray tell why is it, then, that all my efforts to enforce said boundaries have ended with dear Cobb holding me down so that you may violate my person with needles and drugs?"
Through pursed lips, Arthur said, "We're trying to help you. Those drugs take away the dreams."
"We're still in a dream, Arthur. It just isn't mine anymore."
Arthur pushed the syringe into his arm. Eames watched, and Cobb thought he looked strangely sad.
Ariadne showed him the dream she'd designed for him on paper, a relatively simple but safe one; a ski chalet in a valley, snow falling thickly outside, fire blazing inside, bearskin rug on the floor. She'd added a dozen features just to keep projections out. "It'll be familiar and easy for you," she told Eames, who watched her with the glazed, far-off look of a stoner. She squeezed his hand and he blinked. "The point is that you'll feel warm, which will help you start to feel content, and secure. And I'll be right there with you. We can stay there for up to a day, if you want."
Arthur brought out a heart rate monitor they had purchased when they'd felt the need for one to improve their chemical testing process. Eames watched Arthur unbutton his shirt and attach the strap to his chest without saying anything. Before pulling away, Cobb caught Arthur brushing a hand over Eames' forehead and murmuring under his breath, "Go to sleep, Eames."
Cobb handed Ariadne the IV line to the PASIV, and couldn't help saying, "Be careful."
She nodded and took a deep breath. Cobb hooked Eames up to the PASIV next, and at his nod, Arthur pressed the button.
+
It was less than sixty seconds before the wristwatch monitoring Eames' heartrate shot from normal to haywire in an instant. In the same moment, Ariadne jolted awake, her hand scrabbling at her shirt, reaching up under her neckerchief.
"He shot me!" she gulped, her other hand grabbing, desperately, at her pocket, until it found her totem. Tears were streaming down her face. "He shot-- Give him the kick, Arthur, now-- I couldn't do anything, he changed it faster than I could, he was way overwhelmed--"
Eames's chest was rising and falling for breath too quickly, the monitor was screeching an alarm. It took Arthur two seconds to be at Eames' side and another one to grab the back of his chair and tip it, and Cobb didn't need his mathematical mind to know that that was so many more minutes they'd left Eames alone in his dreamscape. Eames hit the floor and woke gasping, panting, retching, grabbing for something to hold onto like he'd been plunged unexpectedly into the ocean. Arthur dropped to his knees and just like that, Eames found a hold in Arthur's lap and gripped on, his face buried in Arthur's shirt, his breath still strangled and fast. Arthur cradled him, one hand at the back of his head, and it was such a weird position to see the point man in, Cobb felt the breath catch in his throat.
Arthur was glaring heatedly at Yusuf. "No more dreams," he said in a low, quietly burning tone. "No more drugs."
Yusuf nodded mutely. On the floor, Eames sobbed into Arthur's shirt like his heart was breaking.
PART TWO
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~4900 (~11,000 overall)
Rating: R
Summary: Eames is broken and the team doesn't know how to put him back together.
Warnings: References to noncon situations.
Author's Note: Written for the fantastic inception_kink prompt: As dream technology spreads throughout the underground, heavyweights in prostitution rings begin to take notice-especially of the famous Forgers of extraction. Eager to be the first to reach this new market, they begin to hire Forgers left and right, only to find that most of them aren't good enough to meet the specific needs of their clients. And so, they all set their sights on the best Forger in the business: Eames.
Also available in podfic form! (Thanks, emilianadarling!)
The streets were cobblestone and lined with old brick buildings, Tower Bridge looming in the background. The building itself was marble and had a massive, ornate fountain that looked like the Trevi Fountain in gold outside. Inside, it looked like every description of Las Vegas hotels Cobb had ever heard. He took it all in with an architect's eye, not an extractor's. Extractors had already been here and ferreted out every secret the place could hold.
"Eames," he murmured gently under his breath, even though there was nobody to reproach but projections around him. Eames had built from memory. He'd never been an architect. Goddamnit.
It would just make things more difficult, that was all. Not impossible, Cobb thought, thumbing the smooth top in his pocket, just bloody difficult...
He took a seat at the bar and drank his scotch neat. It burned a path down his throat, Cobb's brain filling in the sensation with perfect accuracy. Fingers twitching restlessly against the cool glass, he slipped one hand into his pocket, pulled out the top, set it on the polished bar and gave it a spin. It wavered momentarily and then straightened, tiny lights flickering off its surface.
The young brunette woman who slid onto the stool at his side had a soft voice and a hand that felt light and cool on Cobb's thigh.
"Buy you a drink?"
Cobb took another sip of scotch without answering right away, just gazed into the amber liquid for a few seconds. When he looked up, his eyes went straight past the blank-faced bartender to the mirrored surface behind rows of hanging glasses. There was no woman next to him. Only Eames, his eyes downcast and his fingertips drumming silently against the surface of the bar.
"Eames," said Cobb softly.
No response from the woman on his right. In the mirror on his left, Eames' brow furrowed just a twitch, not with any recognition. Behind them, the casino flashed the bright lights of a hundred slot machines, echoed with whirring pings and jangling sounds and the murmuring of a thousand projections.
"Do you know me?" Cobb asked, finally turning to face his companion.
A hush fell over the entire casino. The bartender stopped wiping out a glass and looked straight at him. Cobb could feel the intent stares of every projection in the room prickling at the back of his neck.
The young woman gazed intently into his face. "Of course I know you," she murmured, but it was another long minute before she said, uncertainly, surprised, "Cobb."
The silence broke. The other people at the bar went back to chattering, the bartender turned away, the casino came back to life as though it had momentarily lost power and now the generators were grinding back into gear.
"You don't need to disguise yourself for me, Eames," Cobb said quietly. "That's not what I came here for."
He -- she? -- smiled ruefully, not looking him in the eyes. "I'm not sure I know how to be myself anymore, love."
Love. Cobb had never been on the receiving end of one of Eames' terms of endearment before. That honour had always been Arthur's. Hearing it now made his skin crawl in an unpleasant way. It sounded wrong, somehow. Sounded off in some way, like it had passed its expiry date and gone stale.
"Look. Look in the mirror," Cobb urged gently.
"There are no mirrors here."
"I know. That's why I made one for you."
Eames followed Cobb's gaze and saw the mirrored surface behind the bar. Cobb watched his reflection stare into its own eyes, reach up a hand to touch its cheek. The conversations behind them were dying out like lightbulbs flickering out one by one, the hush starting to settle over them once again like a pall.
Eames removed his hand from Cobb's leg. His voice was low and familiarly husky and weirdly calm. "Cobb, what are you doing here? I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
"You're dreaming, Eames. You've been dreaming for a very long time now."
"Didn't you know, Cobb?" said Eames. "We were always dreaming. I thought you might have guessed, of all of us. Reality's a myth, darling."
The top was still spinning, lights were still bouncing off it, tiny glittering stars on its silver surface.
"There's a reality," said Cobb. "And it's waiting up there for you. We're all waiting for you, me and Arthur and Ariadne."
"I'd have thought Arthur would come in person," said Eames dryly, reaching out and plucking a toothpick off the bar. He played with it in his deft fingers, fiddling with it distractedly. "Given that it's my dream."
Cobb didn't know what to say, how to tell him that Arthur hadn't wanted to come in person. Hadn't wanted to see the state of Eames' subconscious, or invade and pry it open even further than it had already been forced, or have to explain to Eames that he was real, solid; not just the figment of a fevered mind.
"It's time to wake up, Eames," Cobb told him. He checked his watch. "Nearly time."
Eames had snapped the toothpick in four places, so that it splintered up and down like a broken bone. "I appreciate your coming, Cobb. I'm glad it's you sharing my dream, for the moment. But you're waiting for a kick that's never going to come, darling. Perhaps you'll land in another level. Your own dream. But I won't be coming with you."
"We're waiting," said Cobb. The long hand of his watch moved so slowly. He unstuck his throat. "Waiting for a -- kick, and -- I know where it's going to take you."
"And where's that, dear Cobb?" Eames looked at him, finally, with dead eyes. Unreachable eyes. Eyes of a man who had retreated into the very darkest space in his mind and was not going to come out, all his reactions and casual words automatic, sleepwalking.
"Home." The hanging glasses in front of the mirror began to click together. The lights above them flickered. The projections had turned away again, the low buzz of conversation carrying on regardless of the growing rumble. Cobb tossed back the last swallow of scotch and got to his feet. Held out his hand. "Come with me, Eames."
There was a swelling, rising crescendo of noise. Low, rumbling horns. The opening notes of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, pulled out into long, dragging notes; notes that caused the briefest flicker of life to appear in Eames' eyes. Only for a moment. He could hear the music and since it was his dream, Cobb could hear it, too.
"What is that?" he asked. Cobb snatched up his still effortlessly revolving top and pocketed it.
"Arthur," he answered simply, and then the ceiling was ripped apart in a cataclysm of noise. He felt Eames grab onto his hand in the instant before he jolted awake. The building was on fire. There were three corpses on the floor, all with a neat, round bullet hole in their foreheads.
Arthur was gripping him by the forearm and pulling him to his feet, cradling a heavy rifle in the other arm. "Did you find him alright?"
"Yeah," Cobb gasped, reflexively touching the firm weight in his pocket. "Is he waking up?"
Arthur pointed. Eames was sprawled on the stained mattress, just as they'd found him, in ragged jeans and a worn t-shirt that was a size too big for him. But now his eyelids were flickering, his breaths coming harsher and faster, fingers twitching against the stained bedspread. The various IVs and catheters had been yanked out of his body.
"Let me." And then Arthur was hefting the rifle into Cobb's arms, and he leaned down, pulling Eames to his feet and hooking the forger's arm firmly around his shoulders. Eames seemed non-responsive, but managed to stay on his feet, weaving slightly. Arthur pulled a spare handgun out of his waistband and cocked it. His expression was, as usual, perfectly, chillingly calm. "Let's go."
They fought their way out, through the security and the flames and the choking black smoke. When they staggered out onto the street, Arthur shifted his grip on the gun and reached down to punch the detonator in his coat pocket. The building buckled with the force of the explosion, sending up a pillar of dust and smoke into the sky. Arthur had always liked to play with his C4.
They piled into the white van Yusuf had left idling next to the curb. One more getaway, Cobb had asked him, for Eames' sake. They couldn't do it by themselves. Yusuf had booked the next flight out. He peeled into the road before they'd even slammed the door shut.
Eames' eyes were open and glassy, far away. He was covered in sweat and starting to shake, Cobb realized.
"Arthur," Yusuf yelled over his shoulder, peeling in and out of traffic. "Give him the sedative now."
Arthur nodded once, grabbing up the kit on the floor of the van, but Eames' eyes had suddenly flown open at the word sedative.
"No," he choked, jerking away and lashing out when Arthur lifted a glistening needle. "No. Please, no more, please, please, don't--"
Cobb grabbed him by the arms as he started to rise, hauled him in against his chest and held Eames' arms behind his back before he could strike at Arthur. Arthur's expression didn't so much as flicker. He pinned Eames' legs with his knees and gripped Eames' wrist when Cobb released one of his arms. A dry sob escaped Eames as he watched Arthur slide in the needle in, helpless. Then it was gone, and Arthur flicked it wordlessly back into the kit and grabbed a cotton ball to press against the welling spot of blood on Eames' arm, and by then Eames was already slumping back into Cobb's chest, his limbs going slack.
Cobb caught his breath for a few moments and met Arthur's eyes over the sedated forger's head. Arthur didn't have a strand of hair out of place, didn't even look a fraction as shaken as Cobb felt. He simply raised a questioning eyebrow at Cobb's stare.
Well. Cobb had known this wouldn't be easy when Arthur first asked for his help. He just wished he knew what the hell was running through his point man's head at that moment.
+
They went back to the warehouse, of course. The drive from Germany to Paris was long and they kept Eames sedated for every leg of the trip, and then again when they arrived. It was a compound for dreamless sleep, Yusuf had told them, and it would help Eames with the gradual transition from virtual coma to consciousness without the pain of withdrawal.
Eames fought every time he had to receive the injection again, apparently not caring about the promise of dreamless sleep. In the few moments when he was awake, he begged, sobbed, raged, fought them, and -- most painful of all -- offered them sex, if only they'd stop. Before long Cobb and Arthur had their restraint method down to an art, Cobb holding him down while Arthur administered the injection.
"I don't like this," Cobb confessed after one ordeal.
Arthur had looked at him, a bruise already forming on his cheek where Eames had struck him. "It's for his own good," he said.
Cobb knew that already. He didn't have to like it. He sat back in his chair, placed the top on his desk, and twirled it. It spun prettily and toppled over.
"Where are we going to keep him?"
"Why not Ariadne's place?" Yusuf said. He'd just walked into Cobb's office. They both looked at him, and he shrugged. "It's cosier. Being that she actually lives here in Paris all the time."
"And he's probably had enough of men right now," Cobb added quietly, scooping his top up.
Ariadne, right on Yusuf's heels and carrying a grocery bag full of food, snorted. "You don't think women would take advantage of that kind of service?" she said. When all three of them wordlessly transferred their gazes to her, she flushed. "It's an equal opportunity hate-on. Anyway, I don't mind him staying with me."
"No," Arthur interjected flatly. He looked down at Cobb's desk and tapped it distractedly. "We don't know what kind of state he's in. He's had a lot of violent sex pushed on him over a very long period of time and I don't want him redirecting that at Ariadne."
Her cheeks flushed even pinker. Trust Arthur to cut straight through their meandering thoughts without skipping round the point.
"He can stay with me," he added, still not looking up.
"No," said Cobb, scrubbing a hand tiredly over his growing stubble. "Look, I don't think it's a good idea for him to share a space with a man right now ..."
"Then it's settled," said Ariadne, shrugging, and setting down the bag of groceries. She looked at Cobb. "We all stay at the warehouse."
Cobb couldn't form much of an argument against that, and Arthur couldn't, either. So they left the office and started rearranging tables and boxes, forming little walls, trying to cordon off a space that could be just Eames'. Arthur dragged in a deck chair that would serve as a bed and Ariadne made it comfortable with a duvet and crocheted blankets from her flat.
"Look, Eames," she said, the next time he regained consciousness, leading him to the corner they'd set up. "You can sleep right here. And we'll be right over there, okay? None of us are going to leave you."
He sank, eyes bloodshot and unfocused, onto the end of the deck chair, looking as though he hadn't heard her at all. Cobb quietly beckoned her away as Arthur approached, indicating for her to leave.
"Eames," said Arthur, in a low, gentle tone.
Eames blinked up at him blearily, like a drunk. Once again, Cobb kind of hated them for doing this to him. And then something unexpected happened: Eames' gaze seemed to focus, and there was a spark of recognition in there.
"Darling," he rasped.
"Yeah." Arthur settled onto the chair beside him, their thighs brushing comfortably together. Eames leaned his head in, tiredly, his forehead almost touching Arthur's. He reached out and splayed his fingers over Arthur's knee. Arthur's gaze flickered sideways towards Cobb and he swallowed, and for the first time Cobb saw something almost like regret in his eyes.
Arthur covered Eames' hand with his own, the one not holding the syringe behind his back.
"Eames," he said again, steadily. "You know why I have to send you to sleep, don't you?"
"Yes," Eames said. And Cobb (foolish, hopeful Cobb) actually thought this time might go peacefully before the scene inverted upon itself abruptly in an ugly way. Eames went on huskily, "So you can fuck me, darling," and his hand came up to grip Arthur's hair so he could lean in and crush their lips together.
For a second Arthur seemed to be frozen in shock. Cobb was, too, his folded arms sagging slightly. Then, dropping the syringe onto the floor, Arthur pressed both hands to Eames' chest and shoved him away, hard. So hard that Eames fell onto the floor and grunted in pain.
"You're a fucking tease, Arthur!" he bellowed, twisting over on the floor, breathing like he'd just had his windpipe ripped open. "Go on, then, keep pretending! You don't have to fucking pretend with me! You don't have to!"
He was trying to get up; Arthur and Cobb suddenly unfroze. Cobb grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back and shoved Eames flat with a knee in the small of his back while Arthur went for the syringe. Now Eames was sobbing, a choked, broken-glass sound that whistled straight up from his lungs, and laughing at the same time.
"Is this because I'd forgotten what you looked like? Arthur, put the syringe down and I'll never forget again, darling. I'll hold your face in my mind and I'll never let it go. Please put the syringe down, don't do this, Arthur, pet, love, don't--"
With shaking hands, Arthur grabbed his arm and somehow managed to jam the syringe in straight. He depressed the plunger and as they watched, Eames' head lolled and he relaxed against the floor. His harsh, rapid breaths evened out.
Without speaking, the two men lifted Eames between them and laid him on his back on the deck chair. Eames looked almost peaceful, lying like that.
Cobb heard Ariadne give a soft sob behind them.
"It's for his own good," Arthur said forcefully, looking away. He stormed away before Cobb could stop him.
Ariadne looked at Cobb tearfully. "We are doing the right thing, aren't we?" she asked.
Cobb let out his breath in one slow rush. "He's out of that place now," he said quietly. "That makes it right."
+
The first night they spent in the warehouse, Eames had a panic attack at 1AM and started vomiting and clawing at his wrists as if to dislodge phantom IV lines, and none of them got any sleep after that.
+
In the morning Yusuf told them it would be safe to start weaning Eames off the drugs. Cobb went to him while he was still passed out, and started the delicate operation of replacing Eames' clothing, the jeans and shirt he'd been wearing for God knows how long.
Eames stirred while he undressed him, eyes only just cracking open. "I could be anyone you want, darling," he croaked. "Let me be Mal for you. D'you want to make love to her, as many last times as you want, yeah?"
Cobb shook his head, bit his lip and lost his nerve. Arthur stepped in smoothly to take over. Cobb hadn't even known he was there.
+
Arthur moved a lawn chair into Eames' corner, so he could sit with him during the long hours he was awake. He brought Eames an English newspaper in the mornings, and a pastry, and a steaming cup of tea that Eames would cradle in his hands until it turned cold. With Cobb supervising like a gruff mother bear, they took Eames to Arthur's flat so that Arthur could clean him up, get him into the shower and help to remove months of collected imaginary filth and blood. He did this without so much as blushing or faltering, as though it were simply one more duty a point man was expected to perform. Eames was tired and pliant under Arthur's hands. When he leaned in to touch Arthur's face, or try to kiss him again, Arthur would gently but firmly push him away and carry on whatever he was doing.
"You want to fuck me, Arthur," Eames breathed. Cobb could hear him, as he was standing right outside the bathroom with his arms folded over his chest, like a bouncer. He glanced inside. Arthur was patiently buttoning up Eames' shirt, shaking off the hands that Eames latched around his wrists. "I know you do. Just fuck me, Arthur, why don't you? Please?"
"It's the only language he knows now," Ariadne said later, chewing her lip, when the four of them were sitting around Cobb's office and Eames was drifting off in his corner again. "He was down there for, how long?"
"Almost four months," said Arthur mechanically. "Fifteen weeks. One-hundred and six days. There's one-thousand, four-hundred forty minutes in a day. That's two-hundred eighty-eight five-minute periods in a day, which is two-hundred and eighty-eight hours per day in the dreamscape, or twelve days. Multipled by one-hundred and six real days, that's one-thousand, two-hundred and seventy-two days in the dreamscape."
They all stared at him blankly, even Yusuf, who was usually quite good at calculating dreamscape to real time for the purposes of his trade.
"Almost three and a half years," Arthur clarified. "That's assuming they were using the regular compound, and that he didn't spend any time deeper than one layer."
"Jesus Christ," Ariadne mumbled numbly.
Three and a half years spent transfiguring himself, hour after hour after hour, to be used up and wrung out with no respite. No wonder the forger was confused as hell now. Cobb's gut gave a sharp twist. He was not the sort to leave any member of his team in the lurch. He should never have let Eames fall off the radar. He might have prevented this.
"He'll be okay," said Arthur, looking down at his hands, no real conviction in his voice. "I mean, once he's feeling stronger. And he's got bedsores, but they'll heal too. We just need to convince him that he's back in reality."
"And, you know, that we don't want to rape him," muttered Ariadne, half-stifling herself.
"Yes," said Arthur, his shoulders sinking slightly. "And that."
He didn't sound terribly hopeful.
+
On one morning Cobb woke up in his chair from what was probably the most cramped and uncomfortable sleep in his life, and he made a living out of sleeping wherever he happened to be. He could hear Ariadne and Arthur arguing just outside his office door, in the hushed voices of two people who are trying to whisper but may as well be yelling anyway.
"Look, I don't know what it is with you and your thing about ignoring other people's issues until they resolve them on their own," Ariadne was hissing, "but isn't this one kind of painfully obvious, Arthur!"
"I know it is," Arthur shot back. "I'm not ignoring it, for Christ's sake, just because I don't call attention to it at every opportunity--"
Feeling very rumpled and groggy, Cobb got up stiffly from his chair and opened the door. Both point man and architect looked away from each other quickly.
"What happened," said Cobb.
"Eames attacked him again," said Ariadne, her cheeks turning red. "Arthur basically broke his wrist."
"It isn't broken. I know what I'm doing."
"You're confusing him!" she said, struggling to keep her voice down. "He spent three and half years down there getting taken advantage of every other minute -- he doesn't know proper social norms anymore, Arthur. He doesn't understand why you don't want to -- do that to him. And he's trying to jump you before you can do it to him because that way he feels like he has some semblance of control over the situation."
Arthur glanced sidelong at Cobb, who understood that he was supposed to arbitrate here. He hesitated. For an architecture student, Ariadne had an innate understanding of the workings of her colleagues' minds that was second to none. She'd figured him out within their first shared dreaming session, after all.
"She's probably right," Cobb said quietly to Arthur.
"Well, I don't know what to do, then," said Arthur, throwing up his hands. He was trying to sound unruffled, but Cobb knew him well enough to hear the smallest waver in his voice. It surprised him, unpleasantly. Arthur was not a wavering-voice kind of guy. "Go back there, let him have his way with me, get it out of his system, Ari? What?"
"I don't know," she admitted resentfully. "I don't know what he needs. But you can't just push him away like that, you have to explain."
Yusuf was sitting at the desk nearby and listening. At this he got up and joined them, passing a cup of coffee to Cobb, who took it gratefully.
"Maybe there is something we can do," Yusuf started hesitantly. "You might not like the sound of it. But we could put him back to sleep -- design a dream for him where he can let himself relax. Better than sitting around in a chair here and getting injections twice a day."
The first mouthful of coffee almost burned Cobb's throat when he swallowed it unexpectedly and he started to cough. "No," he said, as soon as he could speak. "No. It's too risky. There's too many things he could introduce to the dream." Shades are too real, he thought with a pang.
"Then I'll go down with him," said Arthur immediately. Right now, for once, there wasn't much Cobb could decipher about his point man, but he was pretty sure he knew in that moment: Arthur wanted Eames to have a nightmare so he could blaze in and blow all the bad guys to hell, because at least it would be something. At least he might not feel so much like they'd gotten there too late.
"No," said Ariadne. "I'll go with him. It'd be easier for him with me there to hold the dream together. I can design it, make sure he doesn't change it."
They were looking at him, Cobb realized. He sighed. He wasn't Eames' therapist. He wasn't Eames' anything. Just his boss, on occasion, and Eames barely honoured that arrangement anyway.
"Yeah," he said finally. "It's worth a shot, I guess."
Yusuf brought them a milder sedative to give to Eames before putting him under, to help him relax in case the dreamscape proved stressful for him. Cobb went with Arthur to administer the injection, just in case, but for once Eames was quite passive about it, letting Arthur roll up his sleeve without struggling.
"I'm sorry about this morning, pet," he said when Arthur bent down to put the needle in. His hand slid over Arthur's, resting on the arm of the chair, and stroked, and Arthur froze. "You needn't be afraid to touch me, though."
Cobb could see Arthur trying to rally his thoughts with an effort, trying to remember Ariadne's advice.
"I don't want to touch you, Eames," he said after a pause, "not in that way. You have boundaries, you know. You're allowed to enforce them."
"Oh?" said Eames dryly. "Pray tell why is it, then, that all my efforts to enforce said boundaries have ended with dear Cobb holding me down so that you may violate my person with needles and drugs?"
Through pursed lips, Arthur said, "We're trying to help you. Those drugs take away the dreams."
"We're still in a dream, Arthur. It just isn't mine anymore."
Arthur pushed the syringe into his arm. Eames watched, and Cobb thought he looked strangely sad.
Ariadne showed him the dream she'd designed for him on paper, a relatively simple but safe one; a ski chalet in a valley, snow falling thickly outside, fire blazing inside, bearskin rug on the floor. She'd added a dozen features just to keep projections out. "It'll be familiar and easy for you," she told Eames, who watched her with the glazed, far-off look of a stoner. She squeezed his hand and he blinked. "The point is that you'll feel warm, which will help you start to feel content, and secure. And I'll be right there with you. We can stay there for up to a day, if you want."
Arthur brought out a heart rate monitor they had purchased when they'd felt the need for one to improve their chemical testing process. Eames watched Arthur unbutton his shirt and attach the strap to his chest without saying anything. Before pulling away, Cobb caught Arthur brushing a hand over Eames' forehead and murmuring under his breath, "Go to sleep, Eames."
Cobb handed Ariadne the IV line to the PASIV, and couldn't help saying, "Be careful."
She nodded and took a deep breath. Cobb hooked Eames up to the PASIV next, and at his nod, Arthur pressed the button.
+
It was less than sixty seconds before the wristwatch monitoring Eames' heartrate shot from normal to haywire in an instant. In the same moment, Ariadne jolted awake, her hand scrabbling at her shirt, reaching up under her neckerchief.
"He shot me!" she gulped, her other hand grabbing, desperately, at her pocket, until it found her totem. Tears were streaming down her face. "He shot-- Give him the kick, Arthur, now-- I couldn't do anything, he changed it faster than I could, he was way overwhelmed--"
Eames's chest was rising and falling for breath too quickly, the monitor was screeching an alarm. It took Arthur two seconds to be at Eames' side and another one to grab the back of his chair and tip it, and Cobb didn't need his mathematical mind to know that that was so many more minutes they'd left Eames alone in his dreamscape. Eames hit the floor and woke gasping, panting, retching, grabbing for something to hold onto like he'd been plunged unexpectedly into the ocean. Arthur dropped to his knees and just like that, Eames found a hold in Arthur's lap and gripped on, his face buried in Arthur's shirt, his breath still strangled and fast. Arthur cradled him, one hand at the back of his head, and it was such a weird position to see the point man in, Cobb felt the breath catch in his throat.
Arthur was glaring heatedly at Yusuf. "No more dreams," he said in a low, quietly burning tone. "No more drugs."
Yusuf nodded mutely. On the floor, Eames sobbed into Arthur's shirt like his heart was breaking.
PART TWO