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In the competition for great awakenings, the day his best friend killed him was enough to blow them all to dust. He knew it wasn’t really her that did it, the thing residing in Dominic’s mind was nothing in comparison with the brilliancy that was the love of Arthur’s life. His mother, his guide; the woman who knew every corner of his mind as well as she knew every curve of his body. What Dominic had inside him of Mallory was nothing but a cruel joke, an abomination.
It was also something that he couldn’t get rid of.
The first time he’d seen Mallory after her death in Dominic’s mind, just a glance, he’d recognized it for what it was at once. But even so, his heart had stopped when he saw her, his lips parting on an exhale to whisper her name. Every time it was the same reaction, and the same wave of disgust that overcame him from letting himself, for a split second, believe that she was real.
Even with that disgust, as hard as he tried, he could never bring himself to pull the trigger and send her away for good.
He tried once, a year after, during a job, while they were two dreams in. It had been effortless how he’d spotted Dominic’s projection of Mallory as she walked onto the terrace of a palace by the sea, wearing a flowing dress that clung to her too familiar form and made his heart ache with want. Almost as if she’d it had wanted him to see. It was as close as it had ever been. He’d barely had the presence of mind to be angry at Dominic beside him.
“What’s she doing here.” He’d demanded, voice low, angry, betraying his hurt though Dom didn't seem to notice, too wrapped up in her appearance. She’d turned and looked at them both, and in the gaze that swept over his body he’d felt something snap in him.
“Okay,” he’d easily accepted the lie Dominic told of his assurance that he’d take care of it. “Make sure you do. We’re here to work.”
The guilt and longing that followed Dominic around was plain to see for Arthur. From the start, he attributed the blame for her death to Dominic, and Dominic alone. He wasn’t stupid, his entire life had centered on the Cobb’s. He knew that they’d been pushing the boundaries in their experiments. He knew that something had been wrong when Mallory had started pushing him away instead of pulling him close as she always had, and the same to her own children. But he’d been blinded by his unflinching loyalty to Dominic.He’d trusted when Dominic said, “I’ll take care of it.”
But he wouldn’t let himself be fooled again.
He knew exactly which room Dominic would take Mallory to in the palace. The one that held his portrait, the one that reminded him of Eames. It seemed as fitting a place as any to get the job done, while they were all, in a sense, present.
Dom liked to call it a shade, but that word was too grand for Arthur. It was simply a lie to him. Nothing more, nothing less. Shade could be abolished by increasing the lighting until it was gone, but lies were much harder to kill.
He’d quietly opened the door, expecting to see Dominic still in there with the projection, cheating himself with the comfort of a lie, but instead he’d walked in to find Mallory sitting by herself in a chair. She rose to her feet as he opened the door, as if expecting him. Dom hadn’t been anywhere that he could see, but the minute she stood, he’d had a good guess as to where the Extractor had gone when the chair skittered out from around her, pulled by a rope, to slam against the wall, denting the windowsill in the process. He’d felt the stirring of a smile despite himself, before she turned her face to him, and it all but turned into a frown.
He’d never been close to the projection like this. Here, he could see the details of the lace embroidering the neckline of her dress, the beautiful pale skin on display, the curve of her throat that he could still remember what it felt like pressing his face into when she’d embraced him when he’d cried over silly trivial things.
“I love him, Mal. I love a thief.”
“Mon cher. He loves you, too. Anyone can see it, why can't you?”
It was torture to remember.
“Arthur.” It said as it advanced towards him, heels clicking on the hardwood floor. It spoke in the same accent, the same tone, the same lilt at the beginning of his name like she was singing it. Hearing her voice for the first time, even a mockery of it, saying his name, drove daggers straight through his chest.
“Stop.” He’d held out his hand, the other at his side clenching his gun.
She didn’t. It didn’t. It came close to him, stopping only a few steps away. A single, large step if he wanted to close the distance.
“I’ve missed you.” She said, smiling softly at him. Fondly, he’d realized with a sick twinge in his gut.
His jaw clenched. “You’re not her.”
It cocked it’s head at him and sighed in disappointment, otherwise unaffected by the statement. His gaze was drawn to the curl at the corner of her lip, in it’s usual place. It’d even gotten that right, and he noted dryly that he could have applauded the dedication Dom’s subconscious had taken in getting every line and mannerism modeled perfectly, for all the world a carbon copy of the woman both men had loved.
“I wish we could stay here, together, like old times.” She’d mused quietly, stepping closer to him, her body seeming to gravitate to his. Her eyes lifted to meet his, through the soft wings of her eyelashes, her face close enough that he could see the tiny lines on her skin, the smell of powder in her hair, perfume filling the space between them and choking him. Arthur had swallowed and adjusted his grip. “But you know we can’t.”
“No,” he’d said, and lifted the gun to her face. She hadn’t so much as flinched. “We can’t.”
Despite the calm he was speaking with, his body had trembled, whether from the adrenaline rushing in his body or from the urge to reach out and touch her, just once, to see if she felt the same.
“You know what you have to do, my little Arthur.” The petal of her lips had brushed against the skin of his nose in a mockery of a kiss, making him shudder at the touch.
Her graceful, beautiful hands had wrapped around his wrist to bring his hand up, press the barrel of his gun to her own forehead, her eyes fluttering shut in anticipation. “One clench of the finger, and it’ll all be over. We can wake up together.” Her words had come faster, breathy, matching the skip-stutter pace of his pulse. He could smell champagne on them, just like he remembered when they were celebrating after a job, and she’d sung to him, to Dom, to Eames, a lifetime ago in his memory, non je ne regrette rien. “Please, Arthur. I’ve missed you.”
His teeth had clicked together sharp enough he’d thought they’d cracked, and he’d wrenched his gun from her hands.
He’d recognized it for what it was at first sight, even if his heart had stopped and his lips had parted on a pained exhale to whisper, “Ma chérie…”
He knew the difference, after all. His totem was nothing more than a trinket, for appearances sake. He knew when he was dreaming, when he woke and Mal wasn’t there anymore to sing to him.
But, foolishly, he’d dropped the gun and stepped close to her, and let himself have just a moment, just a moment more with her. “Mallory…” he’d whispered against her hair.
And then a sharp pain bloomed against the back of his head, and he was dazed, suddenly on his knees, looking up into the eyes of a monster bearing a ghost’s face while Saito’s men lifted him to his feet. And then he was in Saito’s dining room, with his own gun in the monster’s hand, pointed back at his own face. And he’d been sick to his stomach with aching rage and shame and disgust.
“Pain is in the mind,” the monster had said, with a self satisfied smile twisting it’s face, raising the gun to his face. “And judging from the decor we’re in your mind, aren’t we Arthur?”
It was better when the bullet connected with his leg, and he had something to unleash the cry built up behind his teeth on.
But she didn’t kill him, in the end, as much as he deserved it for his mistake in trusting her. Not her, he’d fumed to himself through the agony in his leg, it.
Relief from this nightmare came from Dominic.
He didn’t actually die of course, not for real. His death wasn’t as real as the corpse that had been locked away in a box on his twenty-ninth year of life, and packed away six feet beneath the surface of an earth that would forever be one star short of residing in a full galaxy, with only a monster for those who didn’t know her in reality to remember her by.
He merely woke up, and carried on, trying to salvage a mission he knew had already failed. And by the time he opened his eyes again, this time on a train speeding through a serene countryside, he didn’t bother to check his totem, even for the sake of consistency.
He knew the difference.