Chapter Text
It was Ariadne that brought them all back together again.
Well, not all of them. Yusuf refused unequivocally to leave Kenya, sighting the Fischer job as a major exception to his usual policy of avoiding fieldwork. Not to mention, he thought that most of them were crazy, and they couldn't really argue. Saito was busy with his business empire, and, besides, he had only dabbled in the dream-share out of acquisitive curiosity and some severe control issues, seeing as he'd had a highly personal investment in the outcome. Cobb was still iffy, wavering back and forth between his desire to stay with his children and his feeling of responsibility for getting Ariadne started in the business of extraction in the first place.
All right, so, technically, it was only Arthur and Eames that Ariadne had drawn back to her side, which was hardly all of them. It was a good start, though, the three of them together.
Arthur had not been surprised when Ariadne had called him and told him that she had taken a job. He was surprised when she had said that she'd already contacted Eames and gotten his promise to join her. Arthur had rather thought that, like Yusuf, Eames would have been only too happy to wash his hands of the lot of them, never see them again even for work.
But then, Eames' beef had been with Cobb, and Cobb had yet to decide whether or not he was joining them in this venture. So perhaps that had been the reason Eames had proven willing. Or maybe he was just fond of Ariadne. Arthur knew that he, himself, was. She was something of a prodigy, a student of Arthur as much as Cobb. In fact, Arthur was pretty sure he'd spent more time training her than Cobb had. Considering the tendency the projection of Mal had for stabbing or trying to stab Ariadne, it had seemed to all three of them -- Arthur, Ariadne, and Cobb -- to be the best way to handle things.
Arthur sometimes wondered what it said about Cobb's subconscious, about Cobb's feelings toward Ariadne, that his projection of Mal had reacted so violently and with such homicidal tendencies toward Ariadne. Not that Arthur had fared much better. That gunshot to the knee had been excruciating. He'd let Cobb get away with it without an angry word, but he had to wonder what sort of deep-seated hostilities the man might have been fostering toward him that had garnered that reaction.
Or maybe it had just been the way Cobb would have expected Mal to behave if she'd actually been trying to sabotage the job. Not that she would have done. Sabotaged the job, or shot Arthur. So Arthur sincerely hoped and liked to think, anyway.
But, all that aside, Arthur had not been too surprised when Ariadne had called him, and he hadn't hesitated to say yes. He'd been taking a break, relaxing with his well earned chunk of Saito's money, but the quiet life didn't suit him, and he couldn't stay out of the dream-share for long. Like he had told Ariadne, there really was nothing like it. It was as addictive as any drug, and Arthur could admit that he was hooked.
Besides, he wouldn't have wanted to let his skill set get rusty. Didn't want to let his name fade away, couldn't let people in the "know" forget that he was the best point man in the business. They had all agreed that they would keep quiet about the fact that they had performed a successful inception, but Arthur had been well known and in demand before the Fischer job, and he intended to keep it that way.
The job Ariadne had set up wasn't illegal... exactly. Not all extractions were. But any time a person snuck into somebody else's mind and picked at their hidden secrets without their permission, it was on morally indefensible ground. Even if one didn't actually steal information and sell it to a third party.
Arthur was honest enough to admit that much of the time he was a thief, and at best he was always an invasive presence. He'd come to terms with that long ago. Mostly he didn't care. As long as the mark wasn't completely innocent, he'd be willing to do whatever it took. And he'd even taken jobs in the past, where the mark was innocent, was a victim; if only because he knew that the extraction was going to happen anyway and if he was involved he could make sure that it happened in the least painful, least violating way possible.
Arthur didn't pretend to be a good man, but he liked to think that at least he wasn't an out and out villain.
Actually, the job that Ariadne currently had set up for them was the opposite of that sort of situation. This time it was the client who was the potential victim, not the mark. A classmate who had somehow heard about extraction -- Ariadne swore she hadn't breathed a word to anyone, and Arthur believed her; the knowledge was out there for those who knew how to look for it -- had also somehow heard that Ariadne had dabbled, and had come to her with a tearful request. It was that more than the money she offered that had drawn Ariadne and Arthur. After all, they didn't need the work. But a college student who was convinced that one of her professors had drugged and raped her.... There was enough of a decent person left in Arthur that he wouldn't have turned this job down, even if Ariadne hadn't asked with a breathy quaver in her normally strong little voice.
Come to think of it, that was probably why Eames was here too. He liked to pretend he was jaded and cynical, liked to play the asshole who didn't care about anyone but himself, but Arthur knew better. He knew of at least four men who were dead now because Eames was a real gentleman, who wouldn't let a woman be harmed on his watch.
It was too late to save Ariadne's classmate, if she had indeed been raped. But they could at least bring her some peace of mind, especially if it turned out not to be true. And if it was... well, they could never bring their findings to court, but Arthur figured that either he or Eames would take care to see that the man got his just desserts. One way or another.
Ariadne was a fierce little lioness when she was righteously angry, and Arthur had to remind her several times that they didn't know that the professor had done it. Her classmate couldn't be certain, which was why she had hired them in the first place.
"And if he wasn't the one that drugged her -- I know this isn't likely, but we have to take every possibility into consideration -- if he didn't drug her and someone else did, he might have thought they were having consensual sex. If they had sex."
Ariadne snorted and folded her arms defensively, but at least she didn't accuse Arthur of being a chauvinistic jerk and sticking up for the man in this situation. She knew that he was only playing devil's advocate because someone had to. And more importantly she knew that he was right. She was also aware of the fact that he was going to be just as incensed and a lot more dangerous than her if it did turn out to be true.
Arthur liked it when Ariadne was reasonable. Because she had such a strong will that they might not be able to work together if she was not. And Arthur wanted to make sure he was involved in this extraction. Because it might get ugly, if the girl's accusations were right. And only he and Eames should be exposed to the more abhorrent side of human nature if it became necessary. He didn't make the mistake of thinking that Ariadne was innocent, chaste, or delicate. But she was young and eager and neither Arthur nor Eames wanted to see anything happen to mar her brightness.
"Of course, if he did do it, we'll take care of things," Arthur continued smoothly. Because he was a good point man who had to take every angle into consideration, but he was also a human being, and there was no way was he going to allow a rapist to roam free, likely to strike again, violate another girl. "Right, Eames?"
He glanced at the forger and even as Eames smoothly agreed with him. Arthur found himself overwhelmed with a sense of strangeness, of wrongness, as he had been almost every time he had interacted with Eames during this job.
Ever since he had arrived in Paris and found that Eames had already been here, had already set himself up in the hotel suite Ariadne had rented out for their headquarters. This was a smaller job, an extraction, not an inception that would require them to go three levels deep, with a maze for each level, and so these three rooms were more than sufficient for their needs.
Arthur was still trying to put his finger on what was different, what was off about Eames, but every time he thought that he had it, he took another look and realized he was wrong.
The main thing was that Eames was... quiet. It wasn't as though he was loud and disruptive as a norm. He'd speak up if he had something to say, and he wasn't shy about voicing his opinion. And he was certainly paying attention, watching everything they did and listening to everything they said intently. The only thing was that watching was nearly all that he was doing.
For a little while Arthur thought that it might be because of the reason for this extraction. But Eames had talked about it with them relatively dispassionately, had seemed less affected by it than Ariadne was. He'd been upset on the girl's behalf, ready to be as furious as Arthur was ready to be if it turned out to be true, but Arthur hadn't read any lie in his tone when he had discussed it the same way he discussed most jobs.
Arthur wondered whether something had happened to Eames while they had been performing the inception on Robert Fischer, but a quick conversation with Ariadne when Eames was not present hadn't turned up anything. She'd noticed Eames' stillness the same way Arthur had, but was less concerned. In part because she was focusing most of her attention on her classmate, and in part because she didn't know Eames as well as Arthur did.
At any rate, she'd said that the third level had gone much as planned, aside from the little trip she, Cobb, Fischer, and Saito had taken into limbo. Eames had done his part, dreamed up the hospital, stayed on the third level to resuscitate Fischer, and had set up and implemented the kick.
Arthur had thought that maybe Eames was still pissed with Cobb. But Cobb wasn't here. And Arthur and Ariadne had been as much railroaded by Cobb as Eames had been. If Eames was going to bear a grudge against anyone other than Cobb, it should be Yusuf, not Arthur or Ariadne. Well, okay, so Arthur had missed the militarization of Fischer's subconscious, and Ariadne hadn't mentioned how bad things had been with Mal. But Arthur still didn't get the sense that Eames was holding those facts against either of them.
Maybe something had happened after the Fischer job. But Arthur didn't think so. It had only been a couple of months, and he was well aware that Eames had been keeping a low profile, back in Mombasa, where Cobb had found him.
"Maybe he'd just tired," Ariadne had suggested, but then Eames had let himself into the suite before Arthur could tell her how unlikely that was. As if she couldn't see the sharpness of Eames' expression as he listened to them plan, as though she hadn't seen the bright flash of those dark grey eyes under heavy lids. Eames was many things right now, all of them confusing, but he was not tired.
So Arthur was left with no concrete ideas, and Eames was giving nothing away. It wasn't anything Arthur could just out and out ask about. After all, it hadn't yet affected the job, or the team's interactions.
And so technically it was none of Arthur's business. And he wasn't willing yet to make it personal.
+++
The plan was for them to take the professor under, dreaming him into the same bar that Ariadne's classmate had been drugged in. Then Eames would forge a pretty female college student to distract the mark and also to see how he interacted with "her", while Arthur, at the same time, tried to perform an extraction. That last would be done by Cobb if he deigned to join them, which was part of why Arthur was pushing him so hard to come. Ariadne had offered to be the one to approach the professor, but both the men had nixed that idea almost before it had left her lips, with so much passion that she hadn't brought it up again.
Ariadne designed the dream for them, teaching it to Arthur. There was no way that either of them was letting her join them in the extraction; Arthur couldn't trust that the professor's projections would leave her alone if the man actually was a rapist. Once again, she tried to argue and they shot her down vehemently.
The fact that Eames was going to be putting himself into such a potentially hazardous position while Arthur was supposed to be both the dreamer and the extractor was what finally decided Cobb.
"Just give me four days to get the kids settled with their grandmother and get a flight out there," he told Arthur on the phone, and that easily it was decided.
Now they just had to wait. Arthur was relieved, and he was looking forward to seeing Cobb again, as was Ariadne. Eames didn't seem to care one way or the other, but he didn't complain about the delay, so Arthur wondered if he hadn't been a bit concerned as well.
Although, if he was he didn't show it. He didn't show... much of anything. This wasn't normal behavior, but it wasn't so unusual that Arthur felt comfortable asking Eames about it.
Ariadne wasn't thrilled with the delay, but she understood the need, and she would rather they did this safely. Both men were essentially doing this as a favor to her -- even though the pay was pretty good for a private citizen and not a corporation -- and so she would feel more than partially to blame if anything happened to either of them.
"Who would have thought that plundering the mind of a college professor could be so dangerous," Eames said dryly, as they sat about the day after Cobb had promised to come. The man wouldn't even be leaving the States for a couple of days yet, and the time seemed to stretch on interminably ahead of them.
"Eames, be serious." Arthur didn't really mean it; it was more a kneejerk reaction than a reasoned response.
"I'm always serious on a job," Eames said, his tone silken, his voice smooth over the emotional equivalent of a layer of broken glass. Arthur felt the short hairs at his nape prickle, knew that he was going to have to tread lightly. In fact, he probably shouldn't have said anything at all... but it was too late for that.
"I know you are," he replied, keeping his voice carefully neutral. And he did know that. For all he sometimes drove Arthur to distraction, for all he sometimes seemed slipshod and haphazard in his methods, Eames was always focused and he always delivered in the end, even if his methods might seem a little roundabout at the time.
"Arthur didn't mean it, Eames," Ariadne put in. And normally Arthur would have been irked at her for speaking for him, for assigning him motivations, but in this case she was right, and her voice seemed to sooth Eames' ruffled feathers. He shifted his fierce gaze from Arthur to the window, and Arthur and Ariadne exchanged a helpless glance.
Eames was different, and yet neither of them could figure out how or why. And it wasn't enough to call him on it, but it was enough to drive Arthur crazy trying to work it out.
Things couldn't go on this way. At least now he had three and a half days to figure it out, while they waited for Cobb.
There was no way Arthur was just going to let this go. Even if it was none of his business.
***
They agreed to take the next couple of days off. There wasn't anything more they could do; the plan was already in place, they were set up to put it into motion at any point, and now all they needed was for Cobb to arrive and get up to date. Arthur had already sent him a dossier by registered mail, so that should hopefully take a day or less.
Ariadne offered to take Arthur sightseeing, but he'd been to Paris before, many times. And, besides, she had classes.
Eames excused himself before the other two had even finished hashing that out, and Ariadne gave Arthur a sharp look.
"You should talk to him," she said, almost before the suite door had closed behind Eames.
Arthur arched a brow. "And what would I say? 'Eames, why are you being so serious lately'? You saw how he reacted. Without you there, he might well try to take my head off."
Ariadne bit her lip and frowned. "True. But you can't just let this go on. You can't let him go on like this."
"And it's my business how?"
"Well, you guys are friends--"
"We're not friends," Arthur interrupted incredulously. "Where did you get that idea?"
Ariadne gave a look that he could only interpret as disappointed. "You're the closest thing Eames has to a friend, Arthur. It's up to you."
"What?" Arthur stared at her. "When did this happen? We're co-workers, nothing more. And since when did you know whether or not Eames has friends?"
Ariadne sighed and shook her head, as though it was Arthur who was being difficult. "We talked, you know. During the Fischer job. Eames spent most of his time with Cobb and I was usually with you, but there was one night where Eames got drunk and came back to the warehouse when I was working there late. He seemed to need someone to talk to, so we talked until he fell asleep in one of the chairs."
"Did he make a pass at you?" Arthur asked sharply. Why was that his first concern? And why did the thought send a lick of jealousy surging through him? And who exactly was he jealous over; Ariadne or Eames?
Well, okay, he kind of knew the answer to that. He just didn't want to think about it too closely.
Ariadne gave him a particularly offensive look of incredulity. "At me? Arthur, in case you're blind, I'll tell you right now that I'm entirely the wrong gender for Eames to be interested in."
Arthur blinked, but had to admit that he'd wondered, once or twice. And not just because of the pink silk shirts and matching socks.
"So is that one of the things you talked about?"
"Yeah." Ariadne smiled a little sheepishly. "I may have taken advantage of his tendency to run at the mouth to find out some things about him that I'd been wondering."
"You snooped," Arthur said flatly. He wasn't judging Ariadne. It wasn't his place to do so; he couldn't have said he might not have done the same thing if he'd been in her position. Well, he probably wouldn't have. But he probably would have wanted to.
"I did," she admitted, and to her credit she didn't sound ashamed of that fact in the slightest. "I wanted to know more about him. He was such a cipher, such a mystery. He talks plenty but he never says anything personal, and I was curious. Besides, he wanted to talk as much as I wanted to listen. And... and he's lonely, Arthur."
"What?" That had been unexpected.
Ariadne shook her head, dark curls bobbing on her shoulders. "He didn't tell me so in as many words, but I could tell. I tried to quiz him about you, but, well, you were the only thing he wouldn't talk about. He told me one thing, though, about you guys. He told me that you were the closest thing he had to a friend. So I'm not just guessing about that. It's actually a fact. Eames told me so."
Arthur was silent, processing this. If it was true... and it kind of had to be, right? Well, if it was true, then that was really sad. Not that Arthur was exactly Mr. Popularity himself. But he had people in his life he would call friends. Mainly Cobb and Ariadne, true, but there had been and would be others....
Did he think of Eames as a friend? Not really. The man drove him crazy, sometimes. Often on purpose, or so it seemed to Arthur. But then, aside from Arthur's irritated reactions, what Eames did and said to provoke him... well, it was never mean spirited. Arthur could admit to that. And Eames probably wouldn't provoke him like that if Arthur didn't react. Still... friends?
"You should go and talk to him," Ariadne reiterated.
Arthur sighed. Maybe Ariadne was right. Even if Arthur didn't consider Eames a friend, Eames evidently thought of him as one. This didn't place any sense of obligation on him... but he kind of found that he felt one anyway.
"I'll think about it," he told Ariadne. Which was as far as he was willing to go, right now.
"Thank you," she said simply, smiling and patting him on the shoulder. "But if you do, do it for him, not for me, okay?"
Arthur nodded absently, already thinking. Because it made a difference, Ariadne was right, and if he did go to the man, it should be for Eames or for Arthur himself.
If he did.
***
He did. Go to talk to Eames, that was. Almost within an hour of finishing his conversation with Ariadne. Well, he went to talk to Eames. But he only got as far as the hallway outside Eames' hotel room door, stuck there, because no amount of knocking raised the other man.
Arthur knew that Eames was in. He'd quizzed the concierge on his way up, and Eames had gone to his room less than half an hour before Arthur arrived and he hadn't left.
Of course, he might have exited by the window, but why would he have done anything like that? They were all being open about their comings and goings. So far they had done nothing illegal and none of them had anything to hide. Eames was a grown man, and he could do as he liked. If he wanted to leave his hotel room, it was to be assumed that he would walk out of the building like any normal human being.
Arthur felt a little odd breaking into Eames' hotel room. And yet he couldn't bang on the door any further without arousing the interest and suspicions of the hotel staff. When Arthur tried calling the man's cell, he could hear it ringing in the room, but there was no answer. Even if Eames had been napping or bathing, he ought to have answered either the door or the phone by now. Or at least yelled out for Arthur to quit it.
Arthur wasn't worried, he told himself, as he picked the lock with nimble fingers. But they needed Eames for this job, and he had to make sure that the forger was okay.
Arthur felt a little foolish when he entered the room, quietly, carefully, ready to whip out his sidearm, and discovered that Eames was indeed in residence, lying on his bed and hooked up to a PASIV device.
That would explain the lack of response. Arthur hadn't known that Eames had a PASIV device of his own, but he hadn't thought he didn't, and it would only make sense that he might make use of his down time to go under and get in some practice.
Arthur felt a little less foolish, however, and a little more worried, when he crossed to peer at the device, and saw the stark red numbers on the LED display.
It was set for twelve hours.
Arthur scowled fiercely. How could Eames in good conscious go under for that long? That would be almost a week in dream time. Not to mention, that was twelve hours in real time when he wouldn't available if they needed him, twelve hours during which he was completely vulnerable, twelve hours in which he wouldn't be eating or drinking anything....
Arthur took a closer look at Eames. He noticed, now, that the man's features seemed sharper than he remembered from the Fischer job. Previously, he'd put this down to the intense, focused expressions Eames had been sporting. But now, with Eames relaxed in sleep, his face lax, when Arthur could look at him closely without risking being caught staring, Arthur could see that there was a noticeably more pronounced cut to Eames' cheekbones and jaw, that his eyes were less puffy and more sunken than Arthur remembered them being. It wasn't a huge difference, which was why he hadn't noticed it before, seeing only what he expected to see, but he could tell now. And he wondered when and how that had happened.
Well, it had obviously happened during the past two months or so, since the Fischer job. And it had happened while Eames was under, if he did this regularly. So that covered the "when" and the "how". What Arthur really needed was the "why".
There was only one way to do that, he thought. Waiting out the twelve hours and then asking Eames wasn't an option. Arthur didn't have the patience and he didn't trust that Eames would tell him the truth.
So there was only one thing to do. Arthur was in the business of extraction for a reason. And not just because it paid the bills and gave him a reason to dive into the dream-share on a regular basis. It was also because he was good at it. He might not be as skilled at the actual act of extraction as Cobb, but he was certainly no slouch. And he wasn't about to spend the next twelve hours with his head full of questions that only Eames could answer. Not when he could get inside Eames' head and hopefully get some answers.
He set his timer for an hour, though. Whatever Eames was doing in his dream, Arthur didn't want to have to wait out the whole time; twelve hours of dream time should be plenty.
Unspooling a second infusion line, Arthur made quick work of rolling up one sleeve and seating himself on the floor, leaning back against the bed. He was going to be stiff when he roused, he already knew, but there was nowhere else for him to sit. The PASIV case was resting on the room's only chair, and he didn't dare to disturb it. Joining Eames on the bed wasn't an option.
Taking a deep breath and trying to relax the tension between his shoulders, Arthur depressed the infusion activator, and prepared to follow Eames into his dream.
***
It was a sunny day, the light flowing through the city street like golden honey, almost thick enough to have a flavor.
Arthur had been in many different dreams, had felt many different environments created by many different people. He'd even been in Eames' dreams before, for all he'd stayed behind during the Fischer job while the others went down to the third level. Normally a good dream was largely indistinguishable from reality -- at least while in the dream. That wasn't so much the sign of a talented dreamer; it was more indicative of a lack of imagination. The fact was that this was generally a desirable outcome, since there was usually a mark that was supposed to be fooled.
Here, in Eames' personal dream, everything was warm and sweet, so much better than reality. Arthur felt all the tension he had brought into the dream-share with him melt away, dissolving in the gold-glowing sunlight. It just felt peaceful.
He looked around. Not London, not Paris, not Kenya, and nowhere in the States, though he thought he saw bits of all these places and more in the street surrounding him, along with shades of Italy, Greece, and perhaps some Switzerland. It should have looked discordant, off, but it was so seamless that Arthur felt he had been here many times before.
Arthur hadn't really known what to expect, but whatever it had been, it hadn't been this. No overcast sky or rain, no narrow streets, no public buildings older than the United States of America itself. Nothing that Arthur would have thought he'd see if Eames was dreaming about "home".
And yet, somehow, this place did feel like home. Arthur was perfectly at ease here, even though he was an intruder into the dream. And the dream around him didn't seem to mind him being there.
There was no one on the streets, and yet the city didn't feel deserted. It didn't seem as though there was anything missing. It felt as though the dream city was... waiting. Waiting for what, Arthur didn't know, but he got the feeling that it had been waiting for him. Which was just patently ridiculous, because there was no way that Eames could have known that Arthur would break into his hotel room and invade his dream.
Arthur was glad to know that Eames wasn't building from memory -- at least not so far as he could tell -- but he still wondered what the man was doing here, in the dream-share for twelve hours. That meant six days in dream time.
Since standing here wasn't doing him any good, Arthur picked a direction, completely at random, and started walking. There were brightly colored cars parked along the curbs, and he could see people inside the shops that he passed, even if the sidewalks were still bare, even if there were no vehicles in motion on the streets. He didn't enter any of the buildings, though. He wasn't exactly looking for Eames, but he wasn't quite sure he was ready to share this golden world; not even with the projections that lived and worked here.
He changed his mind when he walked past a coffee shop -- privately owned, not a Starbucks -- and glanced in the window to see a dark-haired girl behind the counter who was just too familiar to pass by.
It was, in fact, Ariadne. Tending the bar and passing out espressos with a bright smile, wearing a crisp white shirt and black apron, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, except for bangs that she didn't actually have and a few strands framing her flushed cheeks that were more curly than her hair was in reality.
Arthur pushed the door open, setting a cheery bell tinkling. No one so much as glanced at him, which he thought was strange. There were a half dozen projections in the coffee shop, and they really ought to have taken note of his presence. At least in passing, like normal people would have done, if not recognizing him as an invader in the dream. But most of them didn't so much as glance away from their conversations, laptops, books, drinks....
Ariadne, however, looked directly at him, her smile growing wider, brighter. "Arthur!" she cried out happily.
"Hi, Ariadne," he greeted, hoping that this was indeed her name in the dream, that Eames hadn't made any strange changes. As he neared the counter, he could see that her nametag did say "Ariadne", which was a relief.
"I thought you were at home with Eames," she said, tilting her head, her eyes bright, her ponytail bobbing. "Is he here?" She glanced over his shoulder, frowning faintly when she saw that he was alone.
Arthur blinked. Maybe he shouldn't have been startled by this, but he was. Despite Ariadne in the waking world having just told him that Eames considered him a friend, despite seeing a projection of Ariadne here, he hadn't expected that there might be a projection of him wandering around.
Ariadne's lips pursed in a moue more girlish than any expression he'd ever seen her wearing in reality. "Oh, Arthur, you've slicked your hair back again," she chided. "I liked it the way you were wearing it."
"I--" He really didn't know what to say. He didn't want to alert her to the fact that he didn't belong here, but he didn't know his place. Or, well, his projection's place. Not well enough to fake it.
"Seriously," she said, moving to make a three-pump, three shot hazelnut latte, exactly the same one that Arthur ordered every time he got something more fancy than black coffee in reality, "You and Eames didn't fight again, did you?"
"No." Arthur at least knew the correct answer to that question. He felt a moment of worry, that Eames' projection of him might walk in the door and throw a wrench in the whole scenario, but he comforted himself with the thought that Ariadne hadn't expected to see him, so presumably his projection wouldn't be showing up equally unexpectedly.
"You really should give him a chance, Arthur," Ariadne told him, giving him a wide-eyed look. It was so strange. It was like Ariadne only not. Eames had her features down perfectly, and her physical movements. Arthur could almost, almost have felt that he really was being served a latte by the young architect.... And yet she was softer, more feminine than she was in reality. Not to the point that his brain felt there was anything terribly amiss. But it was noticeable.
It was as though Eames saw Ariadne as being more girlish than she actually was. Arthur began to feel more than a bit of curiosity as to what his projection looked like, acted like. Well, Ariadne had already said something about his hair; apparently his projection did not wear it slicked back. Which thought made Arthur wince.
"What do you mean by that?" he prompted, sipping his latte. It was perfect, which hardly surprised him. For one thing, this was a dream. And for another, it had been made by Ariadne. As though she could do anything by halves, even when she was only a projection.
He hoped that if they were talking about a subject she had spoken with his projection about before, that Eames had Arthur down as well as he had Ariadne, and that his projection was as incisive and yet oblique as Eames had occasionally accused the real Arthur of being.
And that seemed a safe enough bet. Ariadne wrinkled her nose at him -- again, an expression that suited her pretty face but not something she did in reality -- and shook her head. "Oh, Arthur. You're so stubborn. You know how he feels about you. You're just lucky he's so patient."
Arthur took a long, intent drink of his latte, his brain racing. He hadn't really come into Eames' dream to perform an extraction, hadn't wanted to be that invasive, even if he'd given it a passing thought, and yet he had somehow inadvertently stumbled into some knowledge that Eames probably would not have wanted him to hear.
And what knowledge it was. Just an hour or so previously, Ariadne -- the real Ariadne, in the waking world -- had told him that Eames considered him a friend, which had been news to him. Now the projection of Ariadne seemed to be hinting at something more.
Or maybe not. Maybe Arthur was reading too much into it.
"I'm glad you're at least willing to be friends with him now," Ariadne continued, as though Arthur's silence wasn't incredibly awkward. Although this did seem to be proof that she had meant something more when she had told Arthur he should give Eames a chance earlier. "He was so lonely when he first started coming here. And so were you, even if you didn't want to admit it."
She gave him a defiant look, but Arthur was too busy boggling to say anything. He certainly wasn't going to argue, when he had no idea what she was talking about.
Oh, he could make some good guesses. He wasn't the best in the underworld of extraction for no reason.
Eames had built himself a cozy little world here, in his own private little dream-share. And it didn't sound as though this was the first time he had entered it. It seemed that this projection of Ariadne had known him, had known both of them -- though, in Arthur's case, his projection -- for quite a while.
This projection of Ariadne might be a college student, but Arthur doubted she was a headstrong architect in the dream-share, especially seeing as she was working as a barista in a nice little coffee shop that Eames and his projection of Arthur evidently frequented.
Arthur wondered what his projection did; if he was employed the way Ariadne's was. He also wondered what other projections Eames might have in here. If maybe there was a Yusuf working in a pharmacy, if a more benign Mal Cobb might be wandering gracefully through the city streets, perhaps with her husband and children, perhaps alone. He also kind of wondered if the projections enjoying their coffees in this shop were based off of people that Eames had known and worked with in the past.
"I'm not lonely," he protested automatically, realizing a moment after he spoke the words that they might have been a mistake.
But Ariadne only smiled at him fondly. "Well, no, not anymore. You and Eames are good for each other."
Arthur had no idea what he could say to that, but at this point a pretty blonde that Arthur recognized as being Eames' favorite "distraction" came up to the counter, and Ariadne bounced over to serve her with a cheerful, "Hi, Talulah!"
Arthur took note of the fact that the blonde projection looked a lot less plastic when she was wearing a loose, plain, heather grey turtleneck and jeans, her hair gathered in a fraying french braid. In fact, when she smiled at Ariadne, her face virtually free of make-up, she was downright beautiful.
Arthur beat a quick retreat out of the coffee shop, clutching his latte. It had been strange, seeing that sharply sculpted face without the overwhelming knowledge that Eames' consciousness was behind it. Although, seeing her here like this had largely verified a suspicion Arthur had long harbored; that Eames had modeled her after someone he had once known. That was the most obvious supposition, anyway; there was an outside chance that she was an entirely original creation. Arthur would never accuse Eames of lacking imagination.
It wasn't until he was almost a block away that Arthur realized he hadn't paid for his latte. But Ariadne hadn't seemed to mind. This was a dream, so maybe it didn't matter. Or maybe she would add it to a tab Arthur's projection was running.
At any rate, Arthur had finished his drink and, just in time, there was a handy recycling can on the corner. He was a little surprised by this fact -- if anything, he'd have expected a regular garbage bin, didn't think Eames was the sort to care about the environment, even subconsciously -- but he dropped the empty cup in smoothly and paused a moment to get his bearings.
So far he'd been wandering aimlessly. Or at least mostly. He'd been careful not to backtrack, but that had been about the extent of it. Once out of the coffee shop he hadn't felt any desire to enter another store, nor had he seen any familiar faces inside the buildings. The empty sidewalks, instead of seeming lonely or eerie, were pleasant to have all to himself.
But he was here to get answers. And even though he had no idea how he was going to go about doing so, he was feeling the need to get on it. Granted, he had a good eleven hours of dream time yet, but he'd already wasted nearly an hour, and Arthur hated wasting time.
The street he was on looked very similar to the one where he had found the coffee shop, and he wondered exactly how large this dream city was, how large the dream itself was, whether Eames had set it up as a maze, or if there was an edge to it, if one walked far enough in one direction. That wasn't really his concern, though. What he needed to do was find Eames.
And it sounded from what Ariadne had said, that if he found Eames he would also find Eames' projection of himself. He was both curious and trepidatious at the idea of this encounter. Although, really, he was sort of hoping that he could get a look at both of them without their seeing him.
He just hadn't the slightest idea how to go about that.
It was a strange sensation for Arthur, feeling at a loss.
Fortuitously, almost deliberately -- but this was Eames' dream, not Arthur's -- the door to an apartment building just a short way up the block opened, and the very two he had just been thinking about emerged.
Arthur very quickly but very carefully stepped into a store front, which hid him almost entirely from view while at the same time allowing him a good look at Eames and the projection of Arthur that Eames had dreamed up. He only hoped that they weren't headed in his direction, because then it wouldn't be so easy to hide. The store he had sheltered in front of actually wasn't open, so he wouldn't be able to slip inside.
He could see right off what the projection of Ariadne had meant. The dream Arthur was wearing his hair loose, and in fact it was several inches longer than Arthur ever allowed his own to grow. Eames had the wild curls down, and the slight auburn sheen Arthur's black hair took on in the warm sunlight. Arthur shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. To the best of his knowledge, Eames had never seen him with his hair loose.
What also surprised him, in a different way, was the fact that the projection of him was dressed just as well as he dressed in reality, that Eames hadn't taken the opportunity to put him in jeans and a teeshirt or paisley or anything. In fact, Arthur recognized the pale blue shirt his projection was wearing as one he'd had a couple of years ago, before losing it during some job or other. And he couldn't be sure, but he thought that the dark slacks his projection had on were the same pair he'd worn to their meeting in the suite a day or two ago.
It made him feel a little strange, realizing that Eames had paid so much attention to his clothing. Even if the wardrobe was being provided on a completely subconscious level, it meant that Eames had seen and had noticed.
Eames himself was wearing a dress shirt that Arthur remembered him sporting during the Fischer job, an attractive purple button-up with thin lines of brighter color threaded through it, along with a pair of grey slacks. His sleeves were rolled up and his collar was unbuttoned.
He looked... good. More at ease than Arthur was used to seeing him; especially lately. He smiled at the projection of Arthur, his crooked front teeth flashing white and less-white in the golden sunlight, his eyes crinkling at the corners. His hair was tousled, not as flyaway as faux-Arthur's, but more so than he wore it in reality.
All this Arthur caught in an instant, then the two men -- one the dreamer and one a dream -- turned and walked away from where Arthur was hidden. Eames didn't touch the projection of Arthur, but they walked so closely that their upper arms brushed from time to time, and Arthur saw Eames turn his head to shoot the projection a quick grin, his profile sharp and clean in the glowing sun.
Then they were gone, around a corner, and Arthur was left to try to decide what to do. He didn't want to confront Eames about any of this, largely because he wasn't sure yet what was going on. Well, and add to that the fact that he had broken into Eames' hotel room, topside, and invited himself into this dream. It wasn't a very morally defensible action. Those in the dream-share had protocols and practices; there were certain understandings and it was just plain bad manners to barge into someone's dream uninvited. Even though Arthur had done it out of concern, due to the fact that Eames had gone under for twelve hours, essentially rendering himself unreachable during a job for that period of time, he highly doubted Eames would see this as anything other than a violation. Or at the very least, incredibly rude.
There was a sun in the sky, and it was lowering toward the horizon. Arthur wasn't very surprised. What was the point of going under for what amounted to nearly a week if there were no days or nights?
Assuming that Eames and his doppelganger had gone out for dinner or some such, Arthur contemplated the apartment building they had emerged from.
It was a nice structure, open and airy. Arthur squinted, pretty sure that he recognized one of his own jackets draped over the balcony railing on the second floor. His fingers twitched, but then he reminded himself that it wasn't his jacket -- it belonged to the projection of him that Eames had dreamed up. Even without a cloud in the sky, Arthur wouldn't have been so careless as to leave an article of clothing out like that, but evidently his projection was more easygoing.
Well, that was hardly surprising. It was Eames' dream, after all. And Arthur was well aware that Eames thought he took everything too seriously. That opinion, in addition to seeing the way his projection had been wearing his hair, led Arthur to the conclusion that Eames had managed to render his projection of Arthur more laid back.
This might have been a slow progression, though, Arthur thought. The projection of Ariadne had recognized Arthur's slicked back hairstyle as one that his projection had used to wear. And from what she had said, it sounded as though the projection of Arthur hadn't been naturally amicable toward Eames. In fact, it had sounded as though Eames had been working at building some sort of relationship with his projection of Arthur for a while.
Which made a strange sort of sense if this projection had emerged from Eames' subconscious, rather than being a conscious creation.
It suddenly occurred to Arthur to wonder how often Eames had gone under for twelve hours of real time, for six days in dream time, during the period after the Fischer job.... Or maybe even before; though he instinctively thought not.
More than that, though, he wondered why. But he couldn't think of any way to get the truth of that, at least not right this instant, so he was going to settle for doing some snooping.
For now. He still had about eleven hours left in this dream... unless Eames' projections started to turn against him before then. So far they hadn't shown any sign of doing so, but so far he'd only interacted with the projection of Ariadne, and she had thought that Arthur was the projection of himself that she already knew.
Arthur gave it a moment's thought. He was wearing a white shirt and a brown sweater vest, with dark brown slacks. Stripping off the vest tousled his hair, and then he used his fingers to muss it further. It didn't match his projection's exactly, but it was close, and any projections seeing him wouldn't expect him to be the real Arthur, so hopefully they wouldn't notice the difference.
He hoped that if anyone saw him go into the apartment building, they would think that he was his projection, back for some reason. After all, he had already fooled the projection of Ariadne without even trying. The shirt was the wrong color, but it only took him a moment's concentration to shift it from white to pale blue. He might not be adept at forging, but something like that was simple enough, especially when one was not worried about being mobbed by an angry subconscious.
Arthur was glad he'd taken the time to make an effort at matching his look to his projection's when he walked through the door of the apartment building and found that there was a neatly uniformed security guard seated at a desk in the entryway. The man looked familiar, middle-aged and stocky, but Arthur couldn't place him.
"Forget something?" the guard asked Arthur cheerfully, raising bushy brows.
"Yeah," Arthur replied, giving him a nod and a small smile. This must have been the right response, because the projection went back to his magazine without so much as an extra blink.
There was an "Out of Order" sign on the elevator door, so Arthur took the stairs. The walls were a cheerful cream color and the steps were well worn wood. There was a potted plant in the landing. Arthur arched a brow, but this was an apartment building created by Eames, so he wasn't too surprised. A little bit surprised, but not very.
He assumed that the only door on the second floor was the apartment he was looking for. As he picked the lock he hoped vaguely that Eames didn't have an alarm system wired into the place. It seemed unlikely, though. They were in Eames' dream; it seemed a largely pleasant place. Which only made sense, considering that it seemed to be some kind of a retreat for the man.
No alarms sounded when he cracked the door open and entered the apartment, which he took as a good sign.
The apartment was both what he had expected and yet not. It was wide and airy, with hardwood floors and perfectly matched furniture, upholstered in a rich taupe suede. The walls in here were cream colored as well, with strategically placed artwork and several bookshelves filled with books. Although he wanted to get a better feel for the entire place, Arthur found himself irresistibly drawn to one of the closer shelves, wondering what sorts of books Eames kept inside his dream, what library had been spawned from his subconscious.
It was a hodge-podge, he discovered, of first edition poetry and plays, leather-bound volumes of Shakespeare, Doyle, and Poe, mixed in with lurid penny detective novels, and almost an entire shelf of "Babar" and "Tin Tin" picture books in the original French.
Somehow, none of this surprised Arthur. He found himself smiling softly, then he shook his head and went off to explore the rest of the apartment. He wasn't going to be able to spend long here -- didn't want to take the chance of still being here when Eames and his projection of Arthur returned -- but he wasn't ready to leave yet.
The apartment was somewhere that Arthur would not have minded living, he had to admit. There were expensive throw rugs on the floor, a hand-made afghan on the sofa, and quite a few pieces of clothing scattered about. Arthur thought that the shirts, jackets, and, yes, one pair of pants, belonged to both himself and Eames, though he couldn't be absolutely sure.
He really hoped that they weren't tossed about due to fits of passion.... Because that would just be creepy. And he might have to punch Eames in the face for getting it on with his projection.
So far, though, he was willing to give Eames the benefit of the doubt. He didn't think that Eames was perverted enough to have sex with a projection of one of his colleagues. But then, he wasn't sure exactly how much he did know about Eames. He'd thought he'd had a pretty good handle on him. But after the Fischer job and with the way the man had been behaving during their current job, he was beginning to wonder just how much he did know.
Perhaps nothing at all.
Well, that was perhaps a little fatalistic. Arthur hadn't found anything in this dream world yet that had truly shocked him.... Other than the fact of this place existing at all, the fact that Eames had been willing to hook himself up to a PASIV device for twelve hours at a time. Granted, they weren't any of them expecting to be able to do anything until Cobb arrived, and it had been evening headed into night. But Eames should know better than to render himself unavailable, not to mention completely vulnerable, for that long a period of time during a job.
Arthur took a quick look at the kitchen. It was open, not separated from the living room area by any walls, though it was one step raised from the rest of the apartment. There was a small dining nook to one side, and a pantry to the other. Arthur could see some of his favorite foods on the shelves, and it gave him a funny feeling. But he had already known from the details of the clothing and the realism of his projection, how much attention Eames really did pay to him.
He glanced through the open curtains, at the little balcony off of the main living area. It had a wrought iron table and chairs, a potted plant, and he thought there might be a barbecue grill in one corner, but he was starting to get anxious about the passage of time. Granted, it might be hours before Eames and the projection of Arthur returned, but what if it wasn't? Also, he didn't want the security guard downstairs to get suspicious.
He'd come in here out of curiosity, but he wasn't ready to confront Eames about it. Not without a far better idea of what this was and why Eames was doing it.
He took note of the windows on the building directly across the way. They were empty, no blinds, no curtains. That might prove useful.
The apartment had one bathroom, and it was spotless. Arthur was a little startled, after the controlled chaos in the living area. It was a nice, large bathroom, with a clawed tub and a shower stall, both of which were some distance from the toilet.
"Dream a little bigger, indeed," Arthur murmured, grinning despite himself. He had to admit that if he was dreaming up his perfect home, he'd make sure that the bathroom was just the way he wanted. And it probably wouldn't be much different than this.
All that this left him to explore were the bedrooms. And that was plural; there were two bedrooms. Arthur felt as though this was the biggest surprise in the apartment.
Because it was obvious which bedroom was Eames', and which one belonged to his projection of Arthur. Arthur had been virtually certain that they'd have been sharing a room. Had expected that there would only be one bedroom with one bed, or that the second bedroom would be an unused guest room.
But, no. One room was very obviously Arthur's. And that was the frightening part. It was Arthur's. Very close to how his own bedroom looked, in his home in reality. And to the best of his knowledge, Eames had never been in his house. Arthur certainly hadn't invited him in. Hadn't been aware that Eames knew of the place's existence. No one was supposed to know of it, not even Cobb, who Arthur trusted implicitly, outside the dream-share.
But there was Arthur's bed. His antique roll top desk. The lamp that Mal had given him. And there was a wardrobe that he had sold the year before, proving that wherever Eames had gotten his information on Arthur's living space from, it was a little out of date.
Unless he'd been coming under like this for more than a year. But Arthur didn't believe that. Someone would have noticed something off during the Fischer job. He would have noticed something off during the Fischer job.
"Arthur's" room was something of a mess, and that was pretty close to reality. Arthur kept everything neat and as perfectly organized as possible while he was working, but he was hardly such a tight ass at home. He wasn't sloppy, by any stretch of the imagination. Dirty cups and bowls went in the sink immediately, even if they had only held coffee. Empty beverage containers went in the recycling bin. But clothing.... Well, Arthur was careful not to wear anything wrinkled, to make sure that nothing got stained, but before his clothing was laundered, when it was soiled, sometimes it would find itself draped over a chair or even dropped on the floor if he was really exhausted. And it looked as though Eames' projection of him had the same habit. There were stacks of unruly paper on the desk, and a paperback beside them that was lying open, pages down, its spine dented. Arthur had to admit, to his shame, that he had in the past treated books with similar disregard.
This was all a little creepy, and Arthur wondered whether Eames had been spying on him, or if he just had a very good idea of Arthur's ways and a frighteningly accurate imagination. Both possibilities were equally disturbing, in their own ways.
Eames' room, Arthur only peeked in passingly. Granted, Eames was the one who was cohabitating with a projection of Arthur, who had a near-perfect replica of Arthur's real bedroom in his apartment, but Arthur still felt a little intrusive. The fact that there were elements of his own life in this dream notwithstanding, it was not his dream, and he had not been invited. He had barged into Eames' personal dream and broken into his apartment.
Eames' room was actually less of a mess than Arthur's, with a huge bed that looked remarkably comfortable, the bedcovers in a heap, some of them on the floor. There were more bookshelves in here, and what looked like art supplies piled atop a desk without a chair.
With one last look around the place, thinking how really incredibly cozy and homelike it was, Arthur departed. The security guard gave him another smile and a nod on his way out, and then he was loose in the empty city streets again, and still had at least ten more hours in the dreamshare before he roused.
Now he needed to decide what he was going to do next.