Chapter 1: Phones
Chapter Text
He pours two glasses of scotch instead of one and then laughs at his own pathetic hopefulness.
“A man can dream, right?” he mutters to the alcohol, cringing at his own pun.
The needle pricks into his neck and that is all kinds of weird.
There are no sky scrapers or high-class hotels waiting behind his eyelids this time – only darkness.
The weather was balmy and gray. The taste of the bun he'd just gotten from his favorite bakery was just a little off and it was more out of habit than actual fear that he began retracing his steps. The image of Phillipa getting out of the car to join her friends calmed whatever nerves the suspicion had unsettled.
As he exited the shop, half-eaten bun still in hand, he recalled the short but violent temper-tantrum James had thrown over the TV being turned off before his morning cartoons were finished.
He let the memory of preparing breakfast play as a backdrop to crossing the street, walking past that damn open-air café that never seemed to close, regardless of season or weather.
An all-too familiar face was the only guest, sipping a café mocha and glaring at him over the rim of the paper cup. He gave her the friendliest wave he could manage.
Wake up, crossed his mind as he entered the building and was met by the now familiar sight of coffee-nursing coworkers seated in the office they all shared.
“’Morning, Dom,” Rebecca called, lifting her World's Greatest Mom cup in a drowsy salute.
“Good morning,” he muttered, cleaning away the remains of the bun from his beard with the back of his hand. He came to a halt in front of the part of the wall shelves that had become 'his'. “Who's my first patient?”
“Look like your secretary, do I?” she muttered right back, downing the last of her morning wake-up call. “Dave said something about an e-mail.”
“Mm-hm.” He flipped through the bunch of paperwork that somehow always showed up on his shelf in the morning, no matter how much of it he put in the shredder the night before. He muttered names under his breath as he read, brow settling into a comfortably thoughtful frown.
Rebecca gulped down the last of her coffee and got out of her chair. “Any returnees?”
“Hmm? Oh, not really. Two on Tuesday and one on Friday, the rest are all new.”
A quick nod was all he got in response. Rebecca's eyes had already wandered to the wall clock that hung on the other side of the room, ticking closer and closer to 9.00 am.
As the long hand lazily slid into place in front of the twelve, she got out of her chair, put the coffee--stained cup down between the photos of her two sons and gave him a last good-luck nod before heading off to the waiting room.
“Uhm, Mr. Cobb?”
Cobb fought back an amused smile. “Yes, Anas?”
The owner of the question, a young man with short-cropped hair and gangly arms and legs that made him look like an overgrown teenager, had appeared in the doorway opposite the one leading to the entrance hall. He always reminded Cobb of Arthur, just because they were nothing alike.
“T-this is really embarrassing,” Anas began, rubbing the back of his neck. “It's just...Well, it's just – I noticed you didn't have any patients until ten, and thought I'd...”
The left corner of Cobb's mouth twitched and one of his eyebrows climbed up in silent inquiry.
Anas cheek's took on a faint reddish hue. “Yeah, so, uhm. Could you – could you cover the phone for me for an hour? I promised my girlfriend this thing – it'll only take an hour, I swear – but it has to get done today. I'll-”
“See you in an hour,” Cobb interrupted before Anas could tangle up the dialogue further, and he was rewarded with a beaming smile.
Anas disappeared as swiftly as he'd shown up and Cobb took a seat by the phone desk, crossed Anas named off the list next to the sleek black phone – had it been a car, it would have been speeding down the highway committing all kinds of traffic violations – and settled down for an hour-long staring contest with the walls.
Or he would have, if his cellphone, still in the pocket of the outdoor jacket he’d left hanging by the door, hadn't chosen that moment to buzz.
I only have myself to blame, he thought with a deep sigh. He got up again and made a detour to the worn-down coffee machine before digging through his pockets.
Once opened, the phone displayed a text from a number he didn't recognize. He read through it, his frown more confused than pensive now, and was about to hit 'reply' when the office phone started ringing.
He answered it in an absentminded fashion, attention mostly on the text message. “Yes?”
“Mr. Cobb?” Carey in reception asked, voice high and shaky.
“Speaking.”
“I'm sorry, I don't want to bother you guys, but there's a man on line two. He's being quite creepy, if you know what I mean.” She followed this with a laugh as unsteady as her words. “I just thought that if a guy talked to him he might say something, you know? Probably just a perv, but I've been wrong before.”
“I see,” Cobb replied, tearing his eyes from his cellphone. “Put him through.”
“Just a sec!”
The line went quiet for a moment, and then the silence was replaced by the repetitive sound of heavy breathing. Cobb sighed. “Hello?”
“You one of the doctors?” came the response, surprisingly fast.
“Dominic Cobb, dream therapist,” Cobb introduced himself. “If you are in need of medical assistance, I advise you to call 911, sir.”
The man on the other side of the line gave a sigh of relief, then a whimper of pure frustration. “They can't help me. Listen, I don't have much time-”
“Sir, we're a therapy center. If you're in any kind of danger, call 911,” Cobb repeated, rubbing his forehead with one hand. He could feel a headache coming on.
“Listen!” the man on the other end of the line hissed with an edge of hysteria. “I'm having blackouts. I've lost six hours this week alone! And half an hour ago, I apparently threatened to mutilate and rape my best friend's eight year old son, so if you don't-”
Cobb froze, hand still pressed against his forehead. He glanced down at his cellphone on the desk, still with the text message on display. Then he cut in:
“We'll send someone for you right away.” He flipped to a new page on the list next to the phone. “Could I have your address, please?”
Tiffany Cooper downed her third café mocha for the day; one more and her hands would be shaking until bedtime.
The café was still pretty empty. A couple of teenagers had spent what undoubtedly was their morning classes sitting in the back, drinking coffee and smoking, and an elderly lady had stopped by to buy some tea and feed the pigeons. Other than that, Cooper had been sitting alone, and had gotten more than a few odd looks for her trouble.
She cursed under her breath and hit redial.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered into her cell, tapping her fingers on the table top in no particular rhythm and glaring at the waitress, who was staring at her again. She put her hand up, forefinger raised in the universal sign of 'one more'.
The line gave a soft click and a sleepy voice said: “Hernandez speaking.”
Cooper gritted her teeth. “Where the fuck have you been?!” she growled, keeping herself from screaming, but only just. “I've been out here for hours!”
A beat of silence passed before Hernandez groaned. “Shit, sorry. I was on stake-out last night, thought Jerry was gonna help you out.”
“Jerry's busy,” Cooper replied curtly and nearly burned her lips on the new cup the waitress had put in front of her. “Said he couldn't get free until next weekend.”
“Fuck,” Hernandez muttered, voice still gravely with sleep. “I won't be of much use until I've had at least two hours more sleep. How fast do you need to get back to work?”
Cooper glared into her cup. “It's my week off.”
Once more the line was dead silent. Then: “Jesus, Tiff, you can't honestly tell me you're wasting your vacation time trailing this asshole! Please tell me you're not.”
Cooper gulped down a mouthful of latte and willed herself not to choke or spit it out.
“Tiff, go home. That's all I'm saying to you. Go. Home. He won't go on a murder spree just because you took a week off.”
“Itz...”
“No,” Hernandez interrupted, her tone surprisingly firm for someone half in dreamland. “You go home, you – you read a book, or whatever it is you robots do when you have time off, and you relax. I'll stop by later tonight and see he hasn't decapitated anyone, so for the love of God, go home!”
And then the line clicked again, descending into a series of repetitive beeps.
Cooper sat frozen for a moment, staring numbly into her coffee, then hung up. She sighed. “Well fuck.”
The silence in the office was oppressive. If a pin had been dropped, it would have been caused an echo to resound through the entire building.
“Tell me again why you thought this was a good idea?” Rebecca moaned, head in her hands.
Cobb was leaning on his desk, shoulders hunched, but looking less than chastised. Dave and Anas were seated on some visitor chairs, and the four of them formed an uneven circle; no one really wanted to look the others in the eye.
“You know we're not equipped for this,” Rebecca continued, glaring at Cobb through her splayed fingers. “This could get us sued within an inch of our lives!”
No answer. Instead, Cobb leaned back further, half-sitting on his desk. He met Rebecca's glare with steady eyes, biding his time.
“So, how should we do this?” Anas finally piped up when the electric tension between Rebecca and Cobb had started reaching life-threatening levels. Only Dave turned to look at him, lifting an eyebrow.
“I mean,” Anas continued, his attention flickering from his hands, to the walls, to Cobb and then back to his hands again, “we've got the guy, and he's obviously in bad shape...”
“Bad shape? Jeez, could you use a worse understatement?” Dave cut in, rolling his eyes. “That man is so unstable I can hardly keep track of the personality shifts he makes – last I saw him he was just staring at the door to his room, grinning like a lunatic. I don't think he blinked the whole time I was watching him.” He shook his head slightly and smiled stiffly. “Creepy fucker.”
“You could say that again,” Anas murmured, scrutinizing his fingers as if they held the secret to eternal life. “But he's here, we have no next of kin to contact, and he's not sane enough to request any kind of transfer, so what do we do with him?”
“Yeah, Dom, what the hell do we do with him?” Rebecca echoed with a deep sigh, letting her hands drop to her lap.
“I do have a plan.”
Dave's raised eyebrow returned to its place near his hairline. “Really, now. And that would be? Do tell, we're all ears!”
Pushing off his desk, Cobb approached the whiteboard on the far wall and picked up one of the markers lying next to it. “From what I can tell, thus far the patient has presented with sudden and unprecedented asocial behavior, amnesia, and what you could refer to as multiple personalities.” He underlined each symptom by drawing a circle on the board. “Now, what do these three have in common?”
“Trauma,” Anas said, while Dave stated: “Drug abuse.”
Without a word, Cobb wrote the two suggestions down on the board.
Behind him, Rebecca heaved another deep sigh. “Or his mom didn't hug him enough as a kid! I hope you know how hard it is to diagnose personality disorders, especially when you don't have the patient's medical history or any damn background at all! We're therapists, and he needs a psych evaluation and meds, preferably yesterday!”
Cobb's response to this was to write 'psych evaluation' on the board. Rebecca positively growled.
“I am well aware of the difficulties surrounding this case,” Cobb said, tone of voice even and pitched low, as if he was talking more to himself than his colleges. “I also know patients with personality diagnosis generally are unaware of their condition and thus wouldn't seek help, at least not at this late stage.”
“DID?” Anas tried, hunched over as if bracing for a blow.
“Not overnight.”
“And you know this happened over night how, exactly?” Dave asked before Rebecca could open her mouth. “No patient history, remember?”
Cobb didn't start, but there was a slight twitch in his posture that hinted at surprise. “I thought that was obvious.”
“Don't use words you don't know the meaning of,” Rebecca muttered to her desk, her shoulders sagging. “How is anything related to this obvious, other than the fact that you shouldn't have brought him here in the first place?”
Cobb brought his hand up to rub against his forehead and shifted his weight to one foot. He let the hand fall again and locked eyes with Rebecca. “He has a friend, someone he calls his best friend, who lets him near his eight year old child. When things went wrong, the patient panicked and contacted help on his own, instead of – as should have been expected – underplaying the event. That and the fact that he's now switching between one personality more threatening than the next is, I find, a good basis for assuming he's never acted like this before.”
“And how do you know he was telling the truth when he called?”
Cobb opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short by a loud ringing. “Answer that, would you, Anas?”
Anas, unlike Cobb, did start at being addressed and got out of his chair swiftly enough to make it wobble on its hind legs. He snatched up the receiver and nearly dropped it before answering with a stuttering: “H-hello?”
The rest of the room remained quiet as Anas ‘uh-huhed’ and nodded his way through the conversation – or rather, monologue – and watched him expectantly after he'd hung up. He looked positively shell-shocked.
“Guys, you have no idea who the patient is!”
“Well, duh,” Dave said, rolling his eyes again.
Anas didn't react, he just kept staring into space, his voice faint and his jaw still somewhat slack. “Carey says he's Taaj Bakhsh Najjar.”
Three pairs of eyebrows elevated to hairline-level.
“Who?”
“Taaj Bakhsh Najjar!” Anas repeated, again met by uncomprehending stares. “You know, 'best selling author, Najjar'. 'Sold several million copies of fiction books, Najjar'.” More stares. “Anything?”
Dave shrugged. “Not much of a fiction reader, sorry.”
“I wish I had time to read fiction,” Rebecca muttered, glancing at the photos on her desk. “I can hardly sit down and watch TV when I get home, much less keep up with the latest best sellers.”
All eyes turned to Cobb, who blinked at their scrutinizing and then made a helpless gesture with his arms, somewhere between a shrug and a 'don't look at me, what did I do?'.
“Huh,” Anas huffed, his tone more surprised than scornful. “Guess I was a bit brainwashed back in university. Took English literature for a semester, and we had a professor that pretty much worshiped Najjar's books. Must have read all of them in less than four months.”
Dave’s fingers disappeared into the brown mess he called a beard and scratched his chin. “So you know all about this fellow's track record in the book selling department, but you didn't recognize him when he was brought in?”
Anas exhaled slowly. “His face isn't on the books, is it now?” Another pause. “Okay, fair is fair, there might have been one photo once or twice. But he's been retired for five years, at least! Last book he published was three years before I started school – I can't imagine how long my professor bemoaned that.”
All of a sudden Anas pulled himself together, jaw tightening and shoulders squaring, and a glow lit in his eyes. A light bulb might as well have appeared above his head. “Oh, that's right!”
Before anyone could comment on this exclamation, Anas had rushed over to the desk that was technically his – everyone always ended up using it as supplementary table for patient journals and other notes, which meant there was always paper everywhere – and dug out his laptop from under a few therapy pamphlets and a box of cookies.
Dave joined him and grabbed a hold of the cookies before they could roll off the desk. “Care to clue the rest of us in?”
The frenetic tapping of keys nearly drowned out the question and Anas was all but sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.
Rebecca cleared her throat.
“Huh?” Anas said in an absentminded fashion, ending his typing by pressing enter with a flourish. “Just a quick trip to Wikipedia, and...” He cut himself short and returned his attention to the laptop screen, eyes rushing from right to left.
After a minute or two he relaxed slightly and stepped back, resting his hands on the desk. “Yes, just as I thought! According to this article, Taaj Bakshs Najjar just announced he's releasing a new book – as of yesterday, actually. The temporary synopsis says the main character is going to have dissociativ identity disorder.”
“And that is relevant how?” Dave asked, getting cookie crumbs all over his beard.
Cobb walked over to join them and halted right behind Anas' chair, scowling down at the laptop. “It means this could all be a hoax to get more publicity.”
“Even better!” Rebecca crowed from the other side of the room. “Now we might have an utter nutcase on our hands or an attention whore who's old enough to be Anas' grandpa, and we have no way of telling the difference. This day is just getting better and better, isn't it?”
“Yeah, looks like we're f-” Dave bit his lip when he caught Rebecca's glare. “Aww, knock it off, Rebecca! Your kids are miles away in school, right?”
The glare remained in place. “Still doesn't mean we use the f-word here.”
“Fine, fine.” Dave threw up his hands in surrender. “We're in a tight spot, that better? Or is the possibility of innuendo too inappropriate?”
“Shut it,” Rebecca muttered, before her eyes darted away to fixate on Cobb's back. “Dom, what are you doing?”
Cobb froze, cell in one hand, the other halfway to grabbing the office phone. For a brief moment he looked like a little boy caught stealing candy, but the moment passed quickly. “I have an old friend who works with a team of psychiatrists. He owes me a favor.”
“Convenient,” Dave muttered, taking a bite out of the last cookie.
Cobb didn't reply. Instead, he picked up the receiver and began dialing the number his cell was displaying.
Once more the room was awkwardly silent as Cobb pressed the speaker button on the phone and sat down next to it, letting the dial tone fill the quiet.
After two rings the line clicked and a male voice answered: “A little busy, Dom, what is it?”
A smile spread over Cobb's lips, but his eyes remained cool. “I'm calling from work, so I'm in a hurry, too. Remember that free visit you promised me?”
The crackling of someone on the other end shuffling through papers preceded the reply: “Visit?”
“Free psych evaluation,” Cobb filled in, gaze on the phone. “You said so last month at least – taking it back?”
More rustling of paper. “Of course not,” the voice assured him and the rest of the room, sounding offended at the very thought of going back on a promise. “Any time you feel like baring your soul to me is fine. I'll cancel my afternoon appointment, if you like.”
“Actually,” Cobb began, then paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Would it be too much to ask you to bring your team over here?”
No paper this time, only dead silence for a good thirty seconds. Then: “For you?” There might have been a faint tremble in those words, but it was impossible to tell if it was one of mirth or worry.
The laugh Cobb gave in reply was shaky, as if they'd just shared a private joke that wasn't so funny anymore. “No, don't worry. We just ended up with a patient that we're not really staffed to diagnose, and he's in real need of treatment. It would really help us out if you-”
“I'll check our schedule right away,” the voice on the phone interrupted and the shuffling paper noise returned to the background. ”Call you back this afternoon?”
Cobb's shoulders – always closer to his ears that any human should hold them – relaxed slightly. “Thanks, Arthur, you're a lifesaver!”
“Don't I know it,” the voice – Arthur – responded, before hanging up. Cobb immediately did the same.
“...So,” Anas began after it became clear no one else would speak up. “We're fine now, right?”
“Guess so,” Dave muttered, fingers on a hunt for crumbs that might have hidden in his tangled beard. “Which means we don't have to waste more time bemoaning our fate, I should say.”
All eyes turned to Rebecca, who huffed and raised her hands above her head. “Fine. We're fine, as long as Cobb's friend knows what he's doing.”
“He does,” Cobb stated without hesitation, now sitting in a far more relaxed fashion than he had all day, shoulders nearly slumping and brow for once unwrinkled.
No one questioned him.
“Then I guess I have patients I should go pick up in the waiting room,” Anas finally said. “See you guys later!”
He nearly ran from the room and Dave was just quick enough to catch the door to the hallway before it could slam in his face. “No patients here, but I'm damn hungry. All this excitement really gets to me. You coming?”
Rebecca stood and stretched. “Yeah, give me a sec, I need to lock this file in my desk drawer.”
Cobb had his attention focused on his cellphone again, flipping through the text message inbox at an alarming speed. “You two go ahead, I'll catch up with you later.”
One locked desk drawer later, Rebecca and Dave were on their way out.
“One thing still bugs me, though,” Rebecca murmured as they headed for the waiting room.
“Really?” Dave sighed and threw the wrapping paper for the cookies in a wastebasket as they passed.
Rebecca either didn't hear the exasperated tone in his voice or just chose to ignore it. “I'm just saying that either the patient's faking it, and doing a freakishly good job of it, or he's managed to overdose on something nasty, that much is clear. But he threatens to murder his best friend's son and then his first thought is to call a dream therapy center he's never been to in his life?”
“Good question,” Dave agreed in the sort of tone that said, 'I stopped listening ten minutes ago'. “Why don't we discuss it over lunch?”
Rebecca stole a final look over her shoulder to the desk where Cobb still sat, unmoving. “Yeah...” she said, not tearing her eyes away. “Lunch sounds good. You're buying.”
The apartment was small and sterile, like a hospital room someone had gotten the sudden urge to repaint yellow and beige. Cooper, owner of said ward-turned-living-space, had settled down in a chair so cubic it could have been painted by Picasso with a book in her lap.
She flipped the page and was about to grab the glass of water standing on the coffee table in front of her when the breast pocket of her jacket began to vibrate and buzz.
Muttering under her breath, she stuck one hand in the pocket and carefully closed the book with the other.
“I promised to relax and I am,” she droned into the microphone as soon as she'd answered. “There's no need to check up on me. I've got a book and everything!”
“Oh, uhm, that's great,” Hernandez muttered on the other end of the line. “But that wasn't why I called you. There's been a...” She paused, as if she had trouble choosing the right word. “Development.”
Cooper sat up straight so suddenly she might as well have been electrocuted. “I'll be right there.”
The cellphone, abandoned somewhere under the textbooks on the coffee table, played the theme music of Mission Impossible for a full three minutes before Ariadne bothered answering.
“Would love to, but can't. You know I'm writing my thesis,” she said before the person on the other end of the line could take a breath to say hello. Somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles a black and white cat let out a self-satisfied purr.
“Then you'll be glad to hear this is something you can actually use for that thesis – which I'm sure you're working on as we speak,” the oh-so-smug voice of Arthur chuckled from across the ocean. Or continent. Whoever knew where he was holed up these days?
Ariadne muted the television. “You got us legal work?”
More smug chuckling. “Let's just say I know a guy.”
“Cobb got us legal work?”
“Swear to it,” Arthur deadpanned. “You in?”
It was Ariadne's turn to chuckle. “Is that even a question?”
“I'm ordering your ticket as we speak. Be at the airport at six tonight.”
Of course the insufferable man hung up before she could get another word in edgeways.
Ariadne sat starting at the dark screen of her cell for a long moment. Then her eyes darted to the clothes strewn over any available furniture there was, the half-eaten box of Chinese food on the coffee table and the cats curled up asleep by her feet.
Finally she disabled her cell's keylock and pressed speed dial. It only rung three times before someone picked up.
“Hi, Marie! This might be a bit sudden, but can you catsit for a few days?”
Chapter 2: Challenges
Chapter Text
“They're hiding something,” he states and gets up to start pacing back and forth. “Are you hiding something?”
Eames gives him the most sincere smile he can muster. “Me? Would I ever hide anything from you?”
A snort. “Oh please, don't even try that.”
“What?”
“That.”
The living room was all kinds of homey. With a comfortable red couch large enough for five people and toys thrown haphazardly into every corner, it gave the impression of being a place where you could throw your feet up after a long day's work – after checking the floor for dolls and toy cars you might accidentally crush otherwise.
Cobb placed a mug of tea in front of each of his three guests, then took a seat in the armchair opposite the couch.
“A tray and everything!” Ariadne cheered as she picked up her mug. It was decorated with small seashells in a pattern only one violation away from a Penrose paradox. The initials J. C. had been carved into the bottom of the mug, together with a few numbers dating it five months old. “I'm guessing you helped James make this?”
“His grandfather is the guilty one,” Cobb replied, sipping tea out of a brightly pink mug, which proclaimed that its maker 'loved her daddy very much'.
“Not to interrupt the wonderful reunion,” Yusuf spoke up, putting his mug down on a coaster, “but I was under the impression we were here on a job.”
Cobb blew on his tea to cool it before answering: “You are, and...” He paused and glanced over at Arthur, who had yet to say a word, “...I'm very grateful you took the time to come here. I can't pay much-”
“Are you kidding? We get to do legal work and you pay for the flights, food and rooms. How could we possibly ask for pay on top of that?” Ariadne protested cheerfully.
Yusuf opened his mouth again, but was silenced by a glare from Arthur.
“When is Eames coming?” Cobb asked, aligning his mug on his coaster with absolute care.
“He's on his way,” Arthur said, eyes on his untouched tea. “Just got some business to finish.”
“Okay, so what are we dealing with?” Ariadne interjected with a wide smile. “Arthur was very tight-lipped on the way over.”
“Very well,” Cobb sighed, his answering smile almost indulgent. He got up from his chair and went over to a nearby bookcase, taking a folder from a stack on the highest shelf and opening it on the table. “This is the job.”
Ariadne gaped like a stranded fish. “You-you can't be serious,” she managed to stutter after a moment, laughing a little. “That's Taaj Bakhsh Najjar! He doesn't even live in this state and he's got to have enough money to buy his own hospital at this point. Why would he go to a dream therapy center halfway across the country? Why a dream therapy center at all?”
Yusuf nodded in agreement, as slack jawed as Ariadne.
The only one who seemed less than impressed was Arthur, who merely shrugged. “He must have heard that Cobb was the best there is.” He picked up one of the files from the folder and glanced through the information, eyes darting from the first sentence to the last in record time. “Besides, he was obviously already in town, seeing as it took the staff just a half an hour to get him.”
Ariadne glanced from Cobb, who slowly shook his head, back to Arthur, who was engrossed in the case files. She pressed her lips together and frowned, but made no further comment.
“Who exactly did you send to get him?” Yusuf asked, frowning. “I'm assuming paramedics or the police would have taken him some place more...fitting.”
Cobb carefully lifted his mug off its coaster, fighting to unstick said coaster from the mug without having it fly halfway across the room. “We have a transportation service for elderly patients and one car was free.”
“Still doesn't explain how the people around him allowed the man who just had a mental breakdown to call for help and then let him go off to a facility that isn't meant to handle these kinds of things without doing anything,” Ariadne said, cupping her hands around her tea mug as if to warm them.
“They did make a call,” Arthur commented, holding up a paper with a small note scribbled near its right upper corner. “The secretary at the dream therapy center noted that Mr. Najjar's friend,” he narrowed his eyes to squint at the curvy hand writing, “a Mr. Kurt Warner, called Mr. Najjar's family doctor minutes after the breakdown. Najjar still ended up going to the dream therapy, though.”
Ariadne crossed her arms over her chest. “I'm starting to get the impression that I've been tricked into something, here,” she muttered, glaring at Cobb.
Cobb threw up his hands in a sign of surrender. “Listen, I don't know why – and I'm sure I don't want to know – but Mr. Najjar's personal physician has given us one week to treat him before he gets moved to 'more fitting' facilities, as Yusuf so neatly put it. It's all perfectly legal. No one will so much as get sued for malpractice!” He paused, meeting Ariadne's gaze with steady eyes. “Do you really think I would do anything to jeopardize my life here?”
The glare remained on Ariadne's face for a good ten seconds more. “You’d better not be lying to me, because it's going to be tricky enough to explain how I ended up here and who I'm working with if I ever want to use this case for anything academic.”
“So,” Arthur interrupted, stacking the files into a neat pile, “let's get to work!”
“...Arthur, you're a lifesaver!”
The old fashioned tape recorder spun to a stop and the three stiff-backed people seated around it inhaled deeply, almost in perfect unison. It wasn't a sigh of relief.
“And you told me I was nuts, bugging their office phone,” one of the women said, crossing her legs and shaking her head enough to set her tight ponytail swinging, brushing against the shoulder of the man sitting next to her.
“Fine, Tiff, you're a bloody genius,” the other woman in the room groaned, staring at the tape recorder with a glare so dark it was almost as if she was willing it to spontaneously light on fire. “Still can't be used as evidence in a court of law, though, seeing as it's done without any formal permission. You know that, right?”
“At least it's given us a heads-up,” the man interposed. “If that's the same Arthur as I think it is, that patient has to be Cobb's next target.”
The first woman – 'Tiff', or 'Agent Cooper' as she preferred to be called – sighed. “What do you know?”
The man – also known as Agent Jeremy Barnes – opened up the laptop that had been sitting next to the tape recorder throughout the meeting, and with a few mouse clicks opened up a secure folder on his desktop. “Usually, I don't carry this around with me; never know who's going to come looking through your computer, right? But I thought you'd be interested in what I've managed to dig up.”
The folder that opened contained three text documents, entitled 'C', 'A' and 'Others'. Barnes double-clicked on the 'A'-document. “It might not look like much,” he commented as the document proved to be less than three pages long, “but it's more than anyone else has, I promise you.”
“What are we looking at?” Cooper inquired, eyes heavy-lidded with skepticism.
“This, my dear friends,” Barnes said in a most dramatic tone of voice, “is all the info I've managed to dig up on Cobb's one known associate – the guy he rarely travels without.”
Cooper's eyebrows began a mountaineering expedition for her hairline. “So you mean that this Arthur is...”
“His pointman, yes.”
“The others?”
Barnes heaved a sigh. “Haven't got much on them yet. No criminal records that I can find, but I haven't been able to get into all of the unknown man's files. The girl checks out – not even a parking ticket. Might just have been tricked along for the ride, but I could be wrong.”
The second woman – Agent Itziar Hernandez – groaned. “This is so not good!”
Cooper huffed.
“Never known you to get shaky legs from so little, Itz,” Barnes commented, raising one eyebrow instead of Cooper's two.
Hernandez gave them both an unamused look. “And I'm not. But I am pissed that we've got not one, but two of the guys we've spent half a year chasing right here under our noses with zero ways of getting at them.”
“Don't say that,” Barnes stated, pushing his laptop over in Cooper's direction.
“And why not?” Hernandez asked, clenching her hands into fists hard enough that her knuckles went white for a few seconds.
“Because we do have a way to get at them.” The Cheshire Cat had nothing on Barnes' grin.
Hernandez narrowed her eyes and unclenched her fists. “What have you been up to?”
The grin was still in place. “Let's just say I have an old pal that's pretty high up in the local law enforcement here. We start investigating, and if we find something he'll testify that we were called in from the start when he got suspicious of this weird transfer – apparently one of Najjar's friend's relatives called the police before the dream center or the family doctor was contacted. So if we find something, we've got official jurisdiction, seeing as this has got to do with dream tech, and if we've got nothing, Cobb will still feel safe enough to try something later. ”
Hernandez's face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Jeremy Barnes, have I told you I adore you today?”
“He doesn't need a bigger head,” Cooper commented as Barnes preened. “What else have we got?”
Hernandez shrugged. “I've got nothing – been tied up with the Bureau the whole week.”
“What I would like to know is how he made the transfer of the patient so seamless,” Barnes muttered, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “That's a lot of red tape to get around without leaving a trace. Have you got any clues?” He gave Cooper a hopeful look.
“Not sure yet,” she answered, eyes still on the laptop screen, a notebook open in her lap. She'd begun writing in it at some point without looking down. “Don't think Cobb's got anything to do with it, though. Money's changed hands, but it's all Najjar's doing. His family doctor got a pretty hefty bonus the week before last from Najjar's bank account. Why, I don't know, but it's the best lead I have so far.” She ended one last note with a fierce stab of her pen, then passed the laptop back to Barnes.
Hernandez gave a curt nod. “If that's all we've got...” She made a vague gesture with one hand. “Well, it doesn't do any good hanging around here. I've actually got official work to do, and my partner will yell himself blue if I don't show up to do my share.”
Barnes shut down his laptop and closed it. “I've got reports to write, but I should be able to shadow at least one of them tomorrow.”
“Good.”
And with that, the three agents got out of their chairs and left the room.
“So you're the famous Arthur,” the woman Cobb had introduced as 'Rebecca' stated, as soon as the team had gotten themselves through the door to the break room. “Thought you were...” She trailed off, leaning back in her chair with a contemplative frown.
“Imaginary?” Ariadne added helpfully as she plopped down into the comfiest chair available – a big, black thing next to a desk which was not so much covered by papers as it was buried beneath them.
Arthur rolled his eyes and sat down next to her; she couldn't quite tell, but he might have blushed, just a little. The briefcase he'd been carrying since they'd gotten their luggage at the airport ended up on top of the paper-entombed desk.
“I was going to say older,” Rebecca interposed with an amused smirk. “Is the mystery member also just out of school?”
Cobb shook his head before either Ariadne or Arthur could open his mouth to reply. “Mr. Eames is an old associate of mine. And don't let Mr. Wayne's boyish good looks fool you – he's been around longer than Anas.”
Rebecca gave Arthur another once-over, lips still quirked in amusement. “Sorry to disappoint you, Dominic, but comparing him to the intern isn't exactly reassuring.”
Arthur returned her smirk with a neutral stare. Yusuf, however, looked as entertained as Ariadne felt.
“Well, I'll leave you guys to get set up,” Rebecca finally said, as no further conversation seemed to be forthcoming. “Call me if you need anything. I'll be with patients most of the day, but I'm sure the reception can get a hold of me if need be.”
“Nice meeting you!” Ariadne called after as she left, then turned to Cobb. “So, where do you keep the patients?”
“Follow me,” was all Cobb said and walked out of the room without turning around to make sure the rest of the group complied. Of course, they did.
The corridor they walked down after passing through the waiting area had a typical hospital look to it; it was long, painted in the most boring colors known to man, and its several doors were closed with chairs placed next to them. Most of the chairs were empty, but one near the end of the corridor had a man sitting in it, solving a crossword puzzle.
“Everything all right, Dave?” Cobb asked, coming to a halt at the door the crossword man was placed beside.
The man finished filling out one more row before answering: “As well as can be expected. He hasn't done anything yet, but we're keeping an eye on him. Oh, and the scan results should be here in a few hours.”
“Scans?” Ariadne asked as Cobb opened the door. “What scans?”
“The usual brain examinations and blood work,” Cobb answered in a monotone. “The family doctor insisted, said it'd be of help.”
Ariadne caught a glimpse of Arthur out of the corner of her eye as Cobb said this. For a moment, he seemed to lose color and freeze in his tracks. Ariadne gave him a questioning look, but he'd collected himself within a second and merely raised an eyebrow at her, so she made no comment.
This was partly because she'd just spotted the patient.
Najjar was a wreck. There was really no other way to describe him. He was sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself. His eyes were wide and unblinking and his clothes looked like they'd been worn for three days straight, even though they obviously belonged to the therapy center or a nearby hospitable – no one went out in a plastic blue shirt and matching pale blue trousers.
He looked up as soon as they closed the door. His eyes immediately went to the metal case in Arthur's hands, and his muttering changed from inaudible gibberish to: “Oh God, yes! Please, please, please, pleeeeeeease...”
None of the team moved.
“Why haven't you restrained him?” Ariadne heard Arthur hiss at Cobb.
“Against the law,” Cobb muttered back, eyes on the patient. “We haven't got the authority to imprison any of our patients. We can't even lock the door.”
Ariadne frowned. “So you mean that if he wants to go out that door, there's nothing you can do to stop him?”
“We're allowed to talk him into going back, but we can't drag him, no,” Cobb replied in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, then walked up to one of the walls and pulled at something near the top, close to the ceiling. A section of the wall fell forward, turning into a makeshift bed.
“Now he tells us,” Yusuf grumbled under his breath and took a seat on the bed, wary eyes on the patient, who was still staring from his corner, still begging for something.
Cobb didn't comment on that. Instead, he made quick work of the walls, triggering small springs along the ceiling to produce five fold-out beds. He then offered a hand to the patient. Ariadne couldn't help but hold her breath as they waited for the patient's reaction.
They didn't have to wait long. Within seconds Najjar's pleading eyes had narrowed and his lips drew up into a pleased smirk. “This shall be very interesting indeed,” he commented, seemingly to no one in particular, taking Cobb's hand and standing.
Arthur placed the metal case down right in the middle of the room between the beds and opened it, revealing the PASIV Device inside.
“If you would please lay down here,” Cobb gently prompted, patting the nearest bed. Najjar complied without hesitation, his mouth still stuck in a shark-like smile. He watched with interest as Cobb rolled up the patient’s sleeve and pulled a line from the PASIV, pushing the needle into Najjar’s wrist. The writer continued to stare at his arm until his eyes rolled up into his head and his body went slack.
Ariadne suppressed a shudder. “Are you sure it's a good idea to just 'go in'?” she asked, slowly taking a seat on the bed furthest from Najjar. “Can't the PASIV make it worse? If there's something wrong with his brain chemistry, I mean.”
“No,” Arthur answered, already programming the device's timer. “The PASIV doesn't interfere with brain functions, and the trigger chemicals are pretty harmless to the system.”
“Other than the whole 'never dream again'-aspect,” Yusuf interposed, earning a look from Arthur, which made him put his hands up in a sign of surrender.
Arthur kept looking at Yusuf for a long moment, then pushed one last button and stood. “We're all set.”
“Good,” Cobb said, pulling a line for himself. “I'll be the dreamer. We're using the standard house setting I sent you last night. You remember it?”
Ariadne and Yusuf gave a nod and Ariadne lay back on her bed. Yusuf simply settled against the wall to wait.
Arthur, however, stayed crouched by the PASIV.
“Arthur?” Cobb said, pausing with the needle an inch from his wrist.
“I'm staying above,” Arthur replied, eyes still on the PASIV. “In case Najjar wakes up before you.”
Ariadne glanced at Yusuf, who didn't look like he was getting up to take a line anytime soon. “Isn't one person enough?” she asked. “There's a guard outside. Or well, a guy, but Yusuf and him shouldn't have any trouble making sure the patient doesn't do anything to us. Right?”
Yusuf shrugged. Arthur didn't say anything, only stared at Cobb, who stared right back. Then: “I'm staying above.”
“All right,” Cobb agreed. “Give us two minutes real time.”
The familiar disorientation of suddenly being in a new place startled Ariadne enough for her surroundings to remain slightly out of focus for a good three seconds. The walls and the floor gradually stopped shifting, turning into pale concrete.
This is wrong, she thought to herself, staring down the oppressive hallway she found herself in. This wasn't in the dream design.
A scream broke through the silence. It was a man screaming, and it sounded far too familiar. Cobb!
She started running before she could fully process the situation. There was a door at the end of the hallway, though the distance to it was hard to estimate. She managed to get to it somehow, Cobb's screams ringing in her ears.
The door was heavy and opened very slowly. The room on the other side was brightly lit by a lamp nailed to the floor. Had she looked, Ariadne would have noticed the furniture nailed to the ceiling. She didn't, though. No, she had eyes only for Cobb.
His left arm was bent at an odd angle by the elbow, and his shirt was undone and soaked in blood – she couldn't tell where he was bleeding from; both his shirt and trousers were a dark red mess.
“Cobb!” she called to him, rushing to his side.
A loud bang and the briefest moment of pain later, she was back in Najjar's room. She might have screamed when she woke up, but she couldn't remember.
“Hey.” Arthur's voice snapped the room into focus. He was kneeling by her bed, pale as a sheet, one hand placed gently over hers, his eyes trying to meet hers. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Ariadne ignored him. “What was that?!” she asked instead – well, shrieked – as soon as Cobb had blinked awake. “Where did you get the gun?”
Arthur frowned and left Ariadne's side to go to Cobb, who lay very still, staring at the ceiling. “I thought you were doing this unarmed,” he commented, carefully pulling the needle from Cobb's wrist.
“I did,” Cobb simply stated, slowly sitting up. He touched his chest absentmindedly, as if to check that it really was whole. “Something went wrong.”
“Should I wake him up?” Yusuf asked, kneeling by the PASIV. The display showed 01:40 in bright, red numbers.
“No,” Cobb answered quickly, but Ariadne interrupted him before he could explain further.
“Why did you shoot me?” she questioned, getting off the bed on shaky legs. “I was trying to help you, why did you shoot me?”
Cobb's eyes flickered to Najjar's still form, then back to her. “I didn't want him to get you, too.”
“What, Najjar?” Ariadne stared at the sleeping man, eyes narrowed. “He did that to you?”
“Did what?” Arthur tried to interrupt, but was ignored.
“No, not Najjar. It was a projection of some kind.”
A shiver ran down Ariadne's spine. “A projection?”
“Did what?”
Cobb's squared his jaw and refused to meet Arthur's searching eyes.
“Najjar's subconscious just tore him to shreds, slowly,” Ariadne deadpanned, crossing her arms over her chest to rub some warmth back into them. “And the dreamscape was messed up. I ended up in some kind of corridor that wasn't part of the design. I think Cobb was in the living room, but it was...different.”
What little color Arthur had left in his cheeks drained away. “How different?”
“It was upside-down, for starters.”
A knock on the door stopped whatever Arthur was going to say next. Dave's smiling face appeared in the doorway. “Scans are here!” He hesitated, his smile falling. “Uhm, is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Cobb answered before anyone else could. “Yeah, we're fine. Just a tough first session. Give those to Yusuf, would you?”
Dave stared at him for a good three seconds before starting into action “Huh? Oh, yes, sure. Have fun with it.” He closed the door after himself and two clicks followed, like he'd locked the door and then swiftly unlocked it.
The room fell silent. On his bed, Najjar stirred.
“Let's take this somewhere else, shall we?” Yusuf suggested.
“You go ahead,” Arthur said, moving towards Najjar. “I'll take care of the patient.”
Cobb gave him a long look, then nodded and opened the door, holding it open. Ariadne stood frozen for a moment, indecisive. Yusuf, on the other hand, was out of the room before anyone could so much as blink.
With a last look over her shoulder, Ariadne gritted her teeth and left.
“Yes. Stop asking stupid questions.”
“But...”
“I said shut up and choose a weapon!”
The street lamps had been on and lighting up the passing cars for a good three hours before Ariadne, Cobb and Arthur finally exited the dream center and headed in the direction of Cobb's house.
“You think he'll be able to figure it out before tomorrow?” Ariadne asked to no one in particular as they made their way down the sidewalk.
“Yusuf's a pure genius when it comes to chemicals,” Arthur replied, eyes darting from an alleyway entrance to a passing cab. “I wouldn't be surprised if he's already analyzed the blood work, made rough chemical copies of the mark's neurotransmitters and settled down to watch his stories.”
Ariadne snorted. “Yusuf watches soaps?”
“'Course he does,” Arthur answered evenly, mouth not as much as twitching.
Two steps behind them Cobb rolled his eyes and put his hands in his pockets.
The first gunshot took them all by surprise. Cobb managed to push Ariadne to the ground on pure reflex, dodging the bullet by a hand's breadth. Arthur was already turned around, taking cover behind a car, searching the buildings across the street by staring through the car's windows, head just high enough out of cover to see.
“Who's shooting?” Cobb shouted, scrambling off of Ariadne and over to the car. Ariadne follow close behind him.
It took Arthur a few seconds to answer. “Whoever they are, they're holed up in the café over there.”
Cobb cursed under his breath.
“You know who it is?” Ariadne asked, breath shallow and almost panting.
“If I do, it makes no sense for them to shoot at us without warning,” Cobb answered, scowling.
Two gunshots rang out. Only one had come from across the street.
Very, very slowly, they all turned around.
A very amused Mr. Eames stepped out of the shadows of the alleyway behind them. “Really, people. Here I thought you'd be able to go at least a week without me, without getting into a gunfight.” He cocked his gun. “We'll say hello all proper-like later, now stop staring at me and run!”
Chapter 3: Bullets
Chapter Text
“And you? Drinking your woes away?”
“Nah, celebrating here, too!” he crows, grin all kinds of cheerful. “Bit of an anniversary tonight, you see.”
“Really?” Laasya grins and flags down the bartender, who places a terribly pink and umbrella-adorned drink in front of her without as much as a word. “Do tell.”
“Here,” Eames said and handed a gun to Arthur, who took it without a word.
“What is going on?” Cobb hissed, glaring at Eames as if he was a viper he'd found in his children's bedroom. “Why are we getting shot at?”
“One thing at a time,” Eames muttered, peeking around the corner of the alley they'd hid in – one of those garbage-filled ones everyone avoided because it looked like a good place to get mugged in. “You're going to take Ariadne and run like hell, back to that dream place of yours. Me and Arthur will keep the shooters distracted.”
Cobb looked ready to protest, which halfway through Eames' reply turned into a look of cold panic. When he spoke his voice was dangerously monotone. “If people are shooting at me, for whatever reason, my children are most likely in danger – and I won't hole up somewhere while they're left unprotected. Give me that gun, or I'll take it from you.”
“Your kids are fine,” Eames huffed, eyes still focused on the street and buildings outside of the alley. “I made sure they were taken somewhere safe as soon as I got here.”
“You did what?” Cobb growled and took three angry steps towards Eames, reaching out to grab him by the arm; but he was blocked by Arthur before he could so much as brush the hem of his sleeve.
“Dom, please,” Arthur whispered, face pale and drawn. “Please just go, we'll make sure you aren't followed.”
There was a moment, a long moment where Cobb just stared at Arthur, eyes narrowed between a glare and pure confusion. Then he tugged his arm loose from Arthur's slackening grip and whirled around, gesturing for Ariadne to follow. Arthur and Eames remained at the mouth of the alley, guns at the ready.
“Something is very wrong here,” Ariadne whispered, starting at every windblown metal can and flickering light they passed.
Cobb nodded in agreement. “Eames is in over his head in something, and he's taking us down with him,” he stated, his voice as cold as ice.
“Yes, but something's wrong with Arthur, too.” She didn't get a reply to this one other than the abrupt stiffening of Cobb's posture. “Though you already knew that, didn't you?”
No answer this time, either. Instead, Cobb ducked around a corner and Ariadne could do nothing but curse under her breath and go after him.
“Goddammit, where have you been?” Cooper positively whined as Hernandez stepped out of her car. “I called you an hour ago!”
Hernandez slammed the door of her small, rusty Saab and loaded her gun without as much as a glance at Cooper's face. “Sorry to disappoint, Itz, but Ronald wouldn't let me go until the last report was finished. What have we got?”
Cooper drummed her fingers on the hilt of her own gun as Hernandez spoke, head turning left and right at every distant sound of vehicles rolling along the highway. “Jeremy got here twenty minutes ago and the stupid bastard couldn't be bothered to wait around for you more than five.”
“That's not what I asked,” Hernandez commented, looking up from her gun with a blank expression.
“The shootout is by the dream therapy center Cobb works at. All we know so far is that Cobb didn't start it and neither did the people working with him. He could be dead for all we know,” Cooper said after a moment of shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“Lucky they started shooting here and not outside Cobb's house,” Hernandez muttered, sticking her key into the lock of one her Saab's doors and turning it. “We could have had a handful of innocent bystanders to deal with.”
They had to go two blocks before they could hear the gunfire. The sounds came unevenly, one bang here, three there, then silence for a minute or five. They found Barnes crouched behind some dumpsters by an all-too familiar café.
“So, who are we rooting for?” Hernandez quipped in a whisper as soon as she was within earshot. Barnes threw her a pleased smile over his shoulder, then returned his attention to the small square ahead of them.
“See that alley?” he asked, pointing with his gun, as if aiming at the darkness of the narrow walkway.
Both Cooper and Hernandez nodded and crouched down, putting the dumpsters between themselves and the sounds of gunfire.
“I saw Cobb and the girl come back this way just as I arrived. They're inside the therapy center now – barricaded themselves in, most likely. No sign of the Arab or Arthur, but I can guess who's covering the alley.”
“I thought the shooting started here,” Hernandez murmured, eying the entrance to the therapy center.
Barnes shrugged with his shoulders, keeping his arms straight and rested on the top of the one dumpster that had its lid closed, the barrel of his gun aimed at the alley. “Maybe they did a little running around to try and shake their tail?”
“Maybe,” Hernandez replied and got up and out from behind the dumpsters before anyone could even think of stopping her. “Let's go see for ourselves.”
A very slack-jawed and wide-eyed Anas was what met Cobb and Ariadne as soon as they rushed through and locked the entrance door behind them. Most of the lights were out in the narrow corridor, only the exit signs illuminating the bleak walls and the tiled floor.
“Uhm, what are you doing?” Anas managed to ask after a long moment spent staring at the panting pair. “I-I was going to go home for the night. Is there a reason you locked us in here?”
“A good reason,” Ariadne answered once she'd caught her breath, pushing off the door to take a few unsteady steps towards the reception desk. “Or would you rather get shot? Haven't you heard anything in the past half hour?”
Anas blinked a few times, then stuck a shaky hand in his coat pocket and fumbled forth a sleek and white mp3-player, with equally white headphones attached. He held it up with a sheepish, frail smile.
“Where's Yusuf?” Cobb asked, straightening up from where he'd been leaning against the entrance door.
“Eh,” Anas hesitated and threw a glance over his shoulder, “I think he was with Mr. Najjar and Dave, last I saw him.”
Cobb huffed in what could have been relief and began walking without so much as a nod in Anas' direction. Ariadne gave Anas an apologetic shrug before hurrying after Cobb.
The chair outside Najjar's room was empty and the door was slightly ajar. Cobb held up one hand and Ariadne stopped dead in her tracks. He then took three silent steps towards the door and placed a hand on the handle, gently pushing it open wider.
The room was dark, but the light from the hallway was enough to illuminate a man-sized form knocked out on the floor and another curled up on one of the beds.
“Yusuf!” Ariadne called, rushing past Cobb before he could enter the room, kneeling next to the fallen man. Cobb reached out to grab her by the arm and stop her, but he wasn't quick enough. He curled his outstretched hand into a fist and turned his attention to the man in the corner.
Najjar was curled up on the bed in a relaxed fetal position, eyes glassy and mouth frozen in a deranged grin. He didn't so much as twitch when Cobb took a step closer and placed himself between the patient and Yusuf's prone form.
A loud groan signaled Yusuf's return to coherence. “Do I have to get up?” he murmured, squinting up at Ariadne's face.
“Where are you hurt?” Ariadne asked and ran her fingers along his scalp.
“Hit me in the stomach, that...” He trailed off into insults Ariadne couldn't translate. “I'll be fine in a minute, just let me lie here a bit.”
“Najjar hit you?” Cobb asked and widened his stance, but Yusuf shook his head in response.
“No, that guard,” he muttered and coughed weakly. “You owe me big for this Cobb – this is the reason I hate the field!”
“What have you found out?”
Yusuf opened his eyes enough to glare at Cobb. “Thank you so much for the sympathy.”
“Listen,” Cobb hissed, still facing the unmoving Najjar, “Eames has managed to get us all into a shootout, which still is taking place less than a block from here, and I have a feeling this man is the reason. So I apologize for my lack of tact, but we've got more important things to worry about than you getting punched!”
“A feeling?” Ariadne commented as Yusuf blinked owlishly up at the back of Cobb's head.
After a long moment of awkward silence, Yusuf said: “Well, his brain chemistry is shot to hell. There's no actual brain damage, it's more of a neurotransmitter imbalance triggered by some form of drug, but there wasn't enough left in his system to tell what.” His jaw tightened as he made an attempt to sit up but sagged backwards instead, only avoiding hitting the floor because Ariadne was there to catch him. “What's strange is that he shouldn't be reacting like this. The drug is long gone and there's no permanent damage, so he should be back to whatever is normal for him.”
This made Cobb turn enough to look at Yusuf out of the corner of his eye. “The drug might have been stored in his fat cells,” he muttered, taking a step closer to Najjar's still curled-up form. “Acid flashbacks?”
Yusuf groaned in agreement. “Except whatever he took, it wasn't acid. If I had to guess-”
“You figured it out, good for you.” The sudden fourth voice was male, but it didn't come from Najjar. As one, Ariadne, Cobb and Yusuf froze. There was a shadow in the doorway. Or rather, two shadows.
The following silence was only broken by Anas' panicked breathing, half muted by the arm around his neck. Dave smirked over his shoulder and tightened his grip a little.
This was the last thing they saw before the door slammed shut and the lock clicked.
If Hernandez had hoped to surprise the shooters, she'd failed miserably. Cooper and Barnes came to a halt at the mouth of the alley as soon as they spotted her, gun trained on an unknown who had his gun pointed right back at her, in a Mexican standoff fashion. The second shooter – Arthur, if that was his real name – was standing slightly behind the unknown man, back against the brick wall lining the left-hand side of the alley of, one eye on Hernandez and coiled tighter than a bed spring.
They made a mismatched pair, Arthur dressed to the nines and the unknown man dressed to blend in.
“FBI!” Barnes shouted and stepped into the alley, aiming his weapon at Arthur. “Come on now, guys, you don't want to do anything as stupid as shooting a fed, do you?”
Arthur didn't so much as twitch. The unknown man, on the other hand, grinned like a shark with blood in the water. “So you are Cobb's stalkers. Sorry, love, but you're in way over your heads, here. Harassing honest citizens on your free time will hardly sit well with the judges, am I right?”
He slowly began to back away, one careful step at the time. Cooper wished Hernandez would be smart enough to do the same, but she remained rooted to the spot.
“Are we talking about the same citizens, here?” Hernandez called back, gun as unwavering as her voice. “Because I-”
On the one hand, it was a good thing that the bullet that whisked past Hernandez head wasn't fired from any of the weapons included in the Mexican standoff. On the other, the alley had little in ways of cover.
“Shit!” Barnes exclaimed and made a move to drag Hernandez out of the line of fire, but was stopped by the flat of her left palm nearly crashing into his face.
“Warning shot,” she merely muttered, her gaze on Arthur and the unknown man the whole time. “There are at least two armed assailants on the other side of the street, one in the upper window there,” she indicated the window with a brief glance, “and one behind that car. There could be a third shooter as well, but I haven't been able to locate him.”
As Hernandez talked, their two very visible opponents took the time to step even closer to the alley's left wall, guns still at the ready. “What do you say to the Fawlty Towers maneuver?” the unknown man asked over his shoulder, grinning in far too relaxed a manner for someone cornered by two groups of armed opponents.
Arthur just rolled his eyes, but Cooper noticed his shoulders squaring slightly and he brought one foot up to rest against the wall behind him, as if making ready to push off. “Why do you insist on the ridiculous names?”
“Better than 'Strategy A',” the unknown man laughed, and then all hell broke loose.
Cooper couldn't tell who'd dodged where, but one moment the two men were standing at the other end of the alley and the next they had darted off, one to the left and one to the right. This set off the people hiding on the other side of the street, who within seconds were firing wildly – though mostly in the two directions Arthur and the unknown man had rushed off in, so there was plenty of time to duck for cover before stray projectiles found their way into the alley.
They didn't dare move for at least fifteen minutes.
“So, new plan?” Hernandez growled, brushing dirt off her knees before examining an abrasion on her left hand.
“We had a plan?” Barnes quipped back and violently kicked a plastic bag that had wrapped itself around his ankle. “If we did, I'm pretty sure I didn't agree on 'rushing towards certain death' as the first action.”
“Hush!” Cooper hissed, startling the other two into silence, and then she rose into a crouch to peek around the corner, back into the alley. “Someone's coming.”
“Where's Noah?” The voices was female and just loud enough to be overheard from across the alley. The owner of the voice was hard to make out in the low light of the street lamps behind her and she quickly disappeared from view, but whoever she was she looked to be in her mid-thirties and dressed for running. She was also armed.
“Those bastards probably got him,” a second feminine, deeper voice replied from somewhere to the right of the first woman, out of sight.
Eyes trained on the woman it took Cooper a moment before she noticed Barnes talking under his breath into his cellphone. Hope he wasn't lying about that cop contact.
A metallic clang heralded the sudden arrival of a man running down the fire escape on the house right next to them, at least three stories up. He had time to get down to the second landing before another shape appeared on the stairs above him, exiting from an open window.
“Duck!” Cooper yelled and threw herself at Hernandez, seconds before a new shot rang out. They fell to the ground with a heavy thud and a curse from Hernandez, who'd landed face first in a puddle of oily water.
A yelp from the first man on the fire escape followed the first shot, as did a cacophony of more gunfire.
“Stay down!” Cooper hissed to Hernandez and glanced over at Barnes, still kneeling in the shadow of a parked car. “All we need is you to get killed by a ricocheting bullet, and this evening would be a perfect disaster.”
Hernandez didn't have a chance to comment, as the two men on the fire escape were joined by a third.
“Can you see who it is?” Cooper muttered, easing off of Hernandez, eyes glued to the man slowly sneaking up on the second man. Said second man was still firing relentlessly at the first, who'd taken a last desperate leap and landed on the lowest landing, wobbling.
One choked-off scream later, something came tumbling down over the fire escape railing.
“Fuck!” Barnes shrieked as the shooter hit the ground with a heavy, but also sickeningly wet, thud. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Hernandez scrambled to her feet and snatched up her firearm from another puddle before Cooper could grab ahold of her again. “FBI, hands in the air!”
The third man, still at the top of the fire escape, flinched and whirled to stare down at Hernandez – or that's what it looked like at least, it was still too dark to see his face.
“Drop your weapon!”
Cooper's eyes darted to the garbage pile, where the first man now stood, gun aimed shakily at Hernandez. In the flickering light of the streetlamps she could confirm that it was Arthur.
“Get to the center, darling, I'll handle myself!” the third man called down, voice recognizably unconcerned.
Arthur didn't seem inclined to take his friend's advice. Instead, he kept his gun trained on Hernandez, only glaring at Cooper and Barnes when he noticed them going for their sidearms.
“Don't even think about it,” he muttered, gun wavering off center every other second. “There's three of you and one of me, and I have the cover. If you shoot, you’ll miss. If I shoot, however badly, I'll hit something.”
The other man joined him on the ground. His leap wasn't as swift and sprint-like as Arthur's had been, but his touchdown was decisively more balanced.
“We'll just be going then, shall we?” he offered in the tone of voice of someone suggesting a quick trip to the bar after a long day's hard work. “You stay out of trouble now, agents! Bringing all this work with you home can't be healthy. Come along, Arthur!”
Arthur gave his partner a narrow-eyed glare, but he took a step back, following without taking either his eyes or his gun off of the agents.
Cooper and Hernandez watched them go until they reached the center and slipped inside. Barnes didn't. He was too busy glaring at his phone.
“What are you doing?” Hernandez asked Barnes. He'd remained seated while his two fellow agents had gotten to their feet.
“Waiting for the police, obviously,” Barnes snapped back, as if she'd just asked why eating food was a good idea. “Gunfights always end badly for me.”
“Uh-uh,” Hernandez replied with a shake of her head. “No, I didn't sign up for this only to have the bastard arrested and acquitted by the local cowboys and the pony show of a court they have here. We've finally got some evidence!”
“I'd hardly call this evidence,” Cooper cut in, eyes darting between the fire escape, the alley and the therapy center. “Yes, we'd be able to get 'Arthur' and his companion for this, probably lock them away for a while, but Cobb wasn't even out here. Accusing him of anything related to this would never hold up in any court, ponies or no ponies.”
Hernandez rolled her eyes., “Well, let's go to after them and see how it all fits together, then!”
Cooper didn't hesitate to follow her. Barnes didn't either, but he couldn't help swearing all the way to the door.
The door crashed open and banged against the wall, bouncing against one of the beds, but was brought up short by Eames before it could slam closed again.
“Are you hurt?” was the first question out of Ariadne's mouth as soon as her eyes had readjusted to the new light.
“Oh, I'm just dandy,” Eames answered, “but Arthur here's gotten a little scratched up.” He had a steadying arm around the waist of said man, whose glare could have pierced holes through granite walls.
Ariadne's eyes immediately relocated to the huge red stain on the arm of Arthur's otherwise very white shirt. “Do we have a first aid kit?”
Arthur rolled his eyes and heaved a deep sigh, followed by a brief wince of pain as the movement stretched the injured skin on his shoulder. “It actually is a scratch,” he grumbled, stepping out of Eames' grip. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a shallow gash – it was bleeding, all right, but hardly life-threatening. “See?”
Ariadne quirked an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Eames just grinned like a loon.
”How did you get in? Cobb asked from his position at the far end of the room, next to the prone Najjar.
”Key card!” Eames cheered, waving a small plastic rectangle like a very tiny fan. “Ain't I a marvel? By the way, your FBI crew says ‘hi.’”
Both Cobb and Yusuf opened their mouths to comment on this. Neither of them had a chance to before Ariadne whirled around. “You're followed by the FBI?”
Cobb's eyes darted over to Najjar, then back to Eames and Arthur, and then to Yusuf. “Unofficially.”
”But Saito-”
“Just because Saito paid off the higher-ups doesn't mean everyone involved in the investigation forgot about it,” Arthur interrupted, unbuckling his belt. Eames took it from him without a word and wrapped it around the still bleeding wound, tightening it until it stayed in place on its own. “That will have to do for now. Where did the guard go?”
“After crushing my entrails with his fist, he took off,” Yusuf muttered. He was lying on one of the beds and seemingly talking to the ceiling. “Well, he came back long enough to lock us in here and take a hostage, then he took off.”
“Arthur,” Cobb growled and what little color Arthur's skin had suddenly faded into an ashen hue, as if right on cue.
That was when all the lights went out.
Chapter 4: Reasons
Chapter Text
“Pain is the cleanser,” Eames jokes and coughs up blood.
Arthur is about to snap something back at him, but has to stop and shoot at the approaching projections.
The hallways had a deceptively welcoming feel to them, despite the mind-numbing color scheme. Even in the dim light of the exit signs it seemed like a nice place to visit, maybe talk to someone who'd understand you – or merely nod understandingly at you – and have a cup of lukewarm coffee in the waiting area.
Ariadne could hear Eames curse under his breath as his lock pick broke, snatching away any soothing atmosphere left in the building.
“Tell me again why we're doing this,” she muttered.
“Because Cobb is too much of a stick-in-the-mud to give me the keys, Yusuf would be rubbish at it, and Arthur is too busy playing cowboy,” Eames replied, crouching down so he'd be at eye-level with the lock.
“You know that's not what I asked! Why in the world do you think staying here is a good idea?”
The lock pick's remains wiggled back and forth as Eames gently nudged them with one of his fingers, lifting them gently. “Like I said, Cobb will need a good witness after this, and that guy has both looks and money.” The lock gave a click. “Well, money, anyways.”
He got back onto his feet with a groan and Ariadne noted that his left hand went to his side, but the movement was aborted halfway. She frowned a little at this, but made no comment.
“Am I good or am I good?” Eames cheered, opening the door with a flourish. “After you, my lady.”
The room inside looked like any old storage cupboard worth the name: staplers and paper on one side, glass cases with bottles of liquids and pills with labels scribbled full of warnings and notes on the other. And at the far end, a safe.
It took Eames less than a minute to crack it open.
“What?” Eames commented as he grabbed the silvery metal case from its previously locked location. “Come on, that deserved the slow clap at the very least! I know you're a master criminal these days, but surely breaking and entering can't have jaded you completely already.”
Ariadne sighed, but couldn't completely stop her lips from twitching. “Quit it. We've got enough to worry about without applauding the crazy, armed people to us.”
He mocked her by putting a finger to his lips and nodding slowly in exaggerated understanding. “Quiet as a dore mouse. I'll go first.”
Arthur, Cobb and Yusuf were still in Najjar's room when they got back, as was Najjar. Yusuf and Najjar had not moved from where they'd been left, though Najjar had rolled over onto his back so that they were both staring at the ceiling. Occasionally, he'd drag his unblinking stare away from the ceiling to look at Yusuf, who gave him a nervous glance back before returning his attention to studying the cracks above him, as did Najjar.
Ariadne couldn't help but think that all that was missing was: “Hello, Clarice.”
The ongoing fight – if the glares and posturing was anything to go by – between Cobb and Arthur distracted her away from that thought, as Cobb finally raised his voice above a whisper: “This is the last time I do you a favor, Arthur!”
Ariadne started. “Wait, what?”
Eames dropped the metal suitcase on the bed next to Yusuf, then sat down next to it, eyes on his quarreling teammates. He sat as if on pins and needles, back absolutely straight and fingers stiff, half curled to form fists.
“Dom...” Arthur said, little air behind his voice, as if Cobb's words had hit him in the chest, hard. “I promise I never meant-”
“Never meant what?” Cobb growled, voice rising yet another four or five decibels. “Can you even pretend to grasp how shaky the ground I'm standing on already is? Or is that the plan? Get me kicked out of the country so I'll go back to-”
“No!”
“Could someone please explain what's going on?!” Ariadne cut in, worry fighting exasperation for leadership of her tone. “What did Arthur do?”
Cobb huffed what could have passed for a laugh, if one's standards weren't too high.
“Najjar's our mark because I asked Dom for help,” Arhur said, eyes darting from Cobb's face, to the walls, to Najjar and back to Cobb – or rather, a point slightly above Cobb's left shoulder. “I asked him to agree to bring Najjar here.”
“And you're about to get us all killed,” Cobb hissed, stalking closer to Arthur, who didn't move an inch but didn't look him in the eye, either. “How? How could you do this to me? ”
Arthur's jaw tightened.
Cobb didn't wait for an answer. “If we get through this alive, you never contact me again, you hear me? You don't ever call, text or fucking Google me!”
Somehow, Arthur unlocked his jaw long enough to say: “Yes, Dom.”
“Now, now, Cobb, hold your horses,” Eames interrupted, stepping between the two. “This is completely my fault.”
This earned him a punch in the ribs from Cobb.
Eames went down with a groan. Arthur managed to catch him before he hit the floor and immediately began to tear at his shirt, revealing a torso that looked like it could have starred in a low budget mummy movie.
“Well, I deserved that,” Eames coughed between gasps for breath, leaning heavily on Arthur.
“This is 'just dandy'?” Ariadne muttered, staring at the bandages. She reached out and grabbed a hold of one of Cobb's arms before he could aim another punch at Eames. “Now, could you explain all this to us people who arrived late to the party? Are we safe here?”
“For now,” Arthur muttered, running his fingers over Eames' sides. “I set up a few alarms around the nearest corridors. We'll hear if someone comes.” He stopped talking as Eames hissed out a pained breath. Arthur let his thumb run over what most likely was Eames' third rib, which evoked the same response. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No,” Eames hissed in chorus with Cobb.
“What do you mean, 'no'?” Ariadne hissed. “Yusuf's ribs are probably cracked, and Arthur's still bleeding, so no matter how angry you are at Eames right now-”
“We're trapped!” Cobb roared, whirling on Ariadne. “Or did you forget that? Oh, and Arthur wants to go under with the patient!”
Ariadne blinked. “Now?”
“Dom-”
“Everybody, shut up!”
The following silent was only broken by a tentative “I didn't say anything,” from Yusuf.
“You need to lie down,” Arthur said after a moment, then put a hand in the center of Eames' chest and gave a gentle push. Eames remained immobile. “You stubborn bastard, lie down and stay down!”
“And let you lot get yourselves killed? Don't think so,” Eames growled back, locking his gaze with Arthur's. “We don't have the time for this squabbling! Take care of the mark, and I'll deal with Laasya and her lot.”
Arthur looked ready to say something quite heated in reply to this, but was cut short by Cobb barking: “We are not going under!”
“What if I could guarantee it's the only way to get out of this without risking jail time?” Eames muttered through gritted teeth.
Cobb froze for a second, his already squared shoulders stiffening further. Ariadne looked ready to speak, but was cut short by Cobb snarling: “Another lie like that, and I'll crack the rest of your ribs.”
“Dom, I know I've asked too much of you already, but-”
“Arthur, shut up!” Eames yelled, the bandages under his fingers starting to redden with blood. “I got us into this mess, I'll get us out. So just. Shut. Up!”
Arthur's jaw fell shut with the clack of teeth hitting teeth.
“Christ, Cobb, I thought you were smarter than this,” Eames muttered, getting up into a half-crouch. “Accusing Arthur, really? He's loyal like a damn dog, and you know it.”
“All right,” Cobb finally hissed, some of the rage leaving his glare, “explain.”
“Do we really have time-”
“Explain!”
Eames flinched and exchanged a glance with Arthur, before he said: “Okay, so this is what happened...”
Eames is nearing hammered, aiming for smashed, when a familiar face approaches him, taking a seat at the bar.
“Having a good evening, Mr. Eames?”
“Laasya!” Eames slurs and maybe hiccups as well – he isn't quite sure. “What brings such a fine, upstanding citizen down to these dumps?” He makes a waving gesture with his arms that tries to sum up the state of the pub he's haunting, matched with the impeccable state of Laasya's clothes, as well as the neat bun of hair on her head. She looks like a bloody accountant.
Laasya smiles and it's the smile of a shark, but he knew that already. “Why, celebrating a successful business transaction, of course,” she answers and moves her chair closer to his. “And you? Drinking your woes away?”
“Nah, celebrating here, too!” he crows, grin all kinds of cheerful. “Bit of an anniversary tonight, you see.”
“Really?” Laasya grins and flags down the bartender, who places a terribly pink and umbrella-adorned drink in front of her without as much as a word. “Do tell.”
“'s not much to say,” Eames keeps on slurring, far too caught up in the booze and the pure fucking joy to bother with pronunciation. “An' I think you already know, so stop being so...so...” He trails off and frowns, willing the right words to appear before his mind's eye.
“Nosy?”
Eames snaps his fingers. “Yeah, that's it! Nosy. Don't appreciate that.”
“How about tit for tat, then?” Laasya goes on, sipping her pink abomination of a drink. “I'll tell you a secret, if you tell me what has you in such a good mood.”
Some of the alcoholic fumes dissipate and Eames narrows his eyes for a second before forcing his amiable grin to return. “Sure, why not.”
“You remember my sister?”
“Travi? Yeah, I remember her,” Eames says, his grin going from amiable to smug.
Laasya snorts. “I thought you would. Well, she's come up with a new...recipe.”
This makes Eames' eyes widen in interest, if just for a second. “Really, now? And would this be a lucrative recipe?”
“Very,” Laasya smirks. “If I offer you a share in it, would you confirm a suspicion of mine?”
“Hmm.”
Laasya sips her drink. “Everyone knows about the inception. Well, everyone with enough connections at least, and sadly, nothing specific. But am I correct in assuming that is the anniversary you're drinking to?”
Eames shrugs. “You're half right, that's all I can tell you.”
“Good enough. So, you in?”
“Let me think,” Eames says with a mock frown. “You got a team?”
”Travi is our chemist, of course, and I've got an architect, for the test runs.”
Eames raises his glass, which has very little actual drink left in it. ”If there's money in it, I'm in!”
“We'll be needing a point man, too,” Laasya comments, finishing the last of her drink.
“Leave that to me.”
Laasya raises one eyebrow. “And why should I do that?”
“Because,” Eames says and pauses for effect, “I can get you Arthur.”
The man in front of them is so obviously nervous Eames can't help but chuckle quietly. He's shifting from foot to foot as Travi speaks, eyes never resting on the same person for more than three seconds, and his forehead shines with sweat. But his eyes are glowing with excitement.
“So, when would you say it'd be done?” he asks once Travi has finished her rant on neurotransmitters and whatever other chemistry lesson she's been holding.
“Just a few days, give or take,” Travi is quick to reply, unhooking her surprisingly low-tech presentation from the whiteboard. “As you've already been so helpful with scans and blood work, Mr. Najjar, the rest should be a cakewalk. You'll be back to writing books in no time!”
“Wonderful!” Najjar cheers and all but claps his hands.
“Thank you for your patronage,” Laasya steps in as Travi rolls up the presentation, all smiles.
Najjar returns her smile full-force and shakes her hand with vigor. “It is my pleasure! Call me as soon as you've got the results. And please give my regards to-”
Travi cuts in before he can finish the sentence. “We will, be sure of it!” she assures him and nearly shoves him out the door.
“All right, our sponsor is secured!” Laasya cheers as soon as Najjar's steps have faded away and door is securely closed. “Work your magic, sister!”
Travi gives a quick nod and gives them all a quick smile before heading into the backroom.
“And what are we doing here, again?” Eames murmurs, leaning back in his chair. Behind him Arthur stands as stiff-backed and still as he'd been since getting off his plane. There's a smile on his face though, even if it's just as frozen as the rest of him.
“We'll call you when we're ready to start the testing,” Laasya chirps and gestures at a folder left on the rooms only – and quite rickety – table. “Familiarize yourselves with the books listed and be prepared to take on the role of any of the main characters. Meanwhile, Noah will think up something suitably mad for us to run around in. Understood?”
“Clear as glass!”
Eames' grin stays on his face after Laasya and the architect – Noah something – have left the room. Arthur's, on the other hand, falls.
“They're hiding something,” he states and gets up to start pacing back and forth. “Are you hiding something?”
Eames gives him the most sincere smile he can muster. “Me? Would I ever hide anything from you?”
A snort. “Oh please, don't even try that.”
“What?”
“That.”
“I don't know what you mean, love,” Eames replies, forcing himself to meet Arthur's narrow-eyed glare without flinching.
“Of course you don't,” Arthur mutters back and stops in front of the whiteboard, turnings his glare onto the pictures and notes plastered all over it. “Why include me at all, Eames? So far, all I've had to do is contact a mark, who was hinting at willing participation before I got here, and I've compiled a list of books. None of you really need me for this job, do you?”
“Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic?” Eames quips and gets out his chair, stepping close enough to Arthur to nearly crowd him against the whiteboard. “You’re a hard man to get ahold of.”
Arthur simply rolls his eyes and sidesteps. “You must be out of practice – I could have thought up a more convincing lie.”
“Which part?” Eames teases and follows Arthur as he moves sideways, twisting so they end up with Eames leaning against the wall and Arthur looking at him, instead of at Najjar's mugshot. There might be a shadow of a smirk tugging at Arthur's lips, but it could also be a trick of the light coming from the room’s single, swaying lamp.
“Which part?” Arthur echoes and actually moves closer, eyes flickering into heavy-lidded territory, before jumping back to a softer version of their earlier glare.
“The 'not hiding anything'-part or the 'romance'-part?” Eames asks, grinning still.
Arthur pauses and frowns in a parody of thoughtfulness. Then he shrugs and whirls around, his back once again to Eames. “I do believe we have work to do, such as it is. I'll see you tomorrow, Mr Eames.”
Eames curses under his breath as he watches Arthur leave, but the grin reaches his eyes.
It's three days later, 10:00 P.M., and Laasya won't stop laughing. On the table in front of her are five empty cocktail glasses and there are pink toothpick umbrellas thrown everywhere. She's sagged in her seat, sliding lower and lower for every drink and her neck seems to have lost all musculature, as she can't seem to lift her head off the back of the couch.
Travi collapsed an hour ago and hasn't gotten up from the floor, but her chest's still moving up and down and she's on her side, so neither Eames nor her sister has bothered checking on her for the past three drinks.
Noah looks no better. Empty bottles of beer – with labels Eames hardly recognizes – are gathering up into a less than neat stack, mixing with the cocktail glasses and Eames' own leftovers of better branded beer. Noah has a half-full can in hand as he crows: “To Mr. Eames, a most convincing psychopath in all possible forms!”
“Another toast, to success!” Eames cheers back. “And to Noah, who builds the most mind-boggling of mental mazes.” Well, that was what he intends to say at least, but he's pretty sure his tongue trips over the alliteration. He gets to his feet, steadying himself against the wall.
“Gentleman, ladies, it has been a pleasure working with you! But I do think I shall take my leave of you while I still can walk.” He suspects this meaning doesn’t come across as he wishes it to either, but both Noah and Laasya nod goodbye.
He toasts them a last time, places his glass on one of the table's still free edges and begins a swaying walk back to his hotel room. If his lips weren’t so uncooperative, he might have whistled cheerfully.
He knocks on the door to Arthur's room three, or maybe six, times before giving up. The bed in his own room is soft, but firm enough not to greet him with an aching back in the morning. Damn waste to be alone in it, he thinks to himself and sits on it gingerly, ignoring how the room spins around him.
It doesn't take him long to fall asleep and he doesn't wake up until the sun insists, dragging him out of sleep by the way of unshaded windows.
Where the hell are you, Arthur? Eames groans over his headache and stares over at the other side of the bed that really shouldn't be empty. The headache throbs against his temples like a small, efficient sledge hammer and his eyes catch sight of a bottle on the kitchenette table.
Hair of the dog.
He pours two glasses of scotch instead of one and then laughs at his own pathetic hopefulness.
“A man can dream, right?” he mutters to the alcohol and cringes at his own pun.
The needle pricks into his neck and that is all kinds of weird.
He makes a brief, unsteady effort to grab at the needle, his attacker, anything, and is rewarded with a worse, but still dull pain along his right hand side. Still, it all fades swiftly and he can't even feel himself hit the carpet, even if he's sure he has.
There are no skyscrapers or high-class hotels waiting behind his eyelids this time – only darkness.
The world returns in a gray haze. Movements around him are too slow, sounds too loud for at least five minutes, maybe even ten.
“...could stand here all day giving a Bond villain speech,” a voice finally fades into his consciousness, loud and female and Laasya's, “but I have things to attend to and you aren't one of them.”
He lifts eyelids that are unnaturally heavy to catch a glimpse of her back as she leaves the room – they're still in his hotel room, if the bed and wallpaper are anything to go by – then shifts his gaze from the back of Laasya's head, to the all too familiar device on the floor by the bed, red timer ticking down from ten.
There's a weight next to him on the bed, a shoulder an inch from his, but he doesn't have the time to see who it is. Instead, he wills his hands to move, to reach for the new needle and the thin tube connected to his arm.
And he's not fast enough.
The world around him shifts again, cement rushing up to meet him before he can quite get his feet under himself, and he lands painfully on all fours. His side stings more than his hands and knees, though.
“What the hell?!”
“Should you really be asking me?” came Arthur's voice, from his right. He starts and snaps his jaw shut. “I'm pretty sure you recognize this place.”
Eames does. It's the same place as they'd been in just the day before – a dizzying mix of cityscape, rainforest, and desert blending into each other less than seamlessly. “Why are we in Najjar's dream?”
“Good question,” Arthur barks back, mocking him. “More importantly: Why did you think you could keep Laasya's little 'sponsor ploy' from me?” His tone of voice drops to somewhere around the freezing point.
Something rustles in the trees behind the supermarket, calling Eames’ attention away from Arthur for a second. The leaves shake in the sudden gust of wind from the barren waste right next to the library. Other than that, everything is still. “Ploy, darling?” Eames tries, getting to his feet.
“I took a look around while you were under with Najjar,” Arthur replies, eyes fixed on the trees. “Laasya's e-mail account was laughably easy to break into. Did you know?”
“Arthur-”
“Did you know?!”
Eames gently scrapes the dust out of the small cuts on his palms, backing up to stand next to Arthur, with their backs against a saloon wall. It takes him a minute of Arthur's enraged glaring to answer:
“Yes, yes, fine! I knew the serum was unstable. But so did Najjar! Hell, he practically begged to be the one to try it out.” He blinks, once, as something moves just outside of his field of vision. “Is that why they did this? Sorry Arthur, but that makes no sense.”
The wrinkles on Arthur forehead smooth themselves out and are rushed over by his raised eyebrows in a heartbeat. His eyes go wider. “You really don't know?”
“Don't know what?” Frustration is edging its way into Eames' voice as it melts from Arthur's.
A huff of laughter forces its way out of Arthur's mouth. At the same time he sways slightly and clutches at the wall, as if the ground has shook. He steadies within seconds. “My function during this little operation wasn't to be point man. I was a sock puppet.”
“Sorry to break it to you, but you’ve still got legs, and whatever you've got up your ass isn't an arm,” Eames says, right hand searching for a gun and finding one hanging in a holster in his belt. It looks like a cliché out of an old Western, far too dated as far as technology goes to be anything else and far too shiny to be realistic. He half remembers it from the previous day's escapades.
“They used Dom's name.”
“For...?” Eames prompts as he counts the shots in his gun.
“PR. Laasya's been using his name to push her sister's drugs onto people with insight into the less legal side of dreaming, as a mark of quality. Apparently, this time the mark actually knew details of Dom's past activities and that he'd retired. Thus, she got you to bring me in.”
“No wonder she never left you alone with him,” Eames mutters. “And I thought this would be easy money. Damn, Arthur, I-”
Arthur sways again and realization slowly dawns on Eames. “They injected you with that crap, didn't they?” All he gets in reply is a mute nod. “Fuck! We'll have to get you to Yusuf when we're back above. Speaking of which...” He spins the chamber and cocks the ridiculous gun, aims it at Arthur's head.
“Don't.”
Eames lowers his firearm a fraction of an inch, narrows his eyes.
“Let's just say I found an additional list of side effects.”
The gun goes back into Eames' holster after a short moment's hesitation. “Guess they include more than 'vivid dreams' and headaches.”
As if on cue, dark shapes appear among the trees and in the windows of the buildings. Guess that's number three.
“Let's just say Travi graced me with more than twice the dose Najjar got. I'm not waking up for a while.”
The dark shapes – little more than human shaped shadows, even in the noon sunlight – are moving towards them, though their hollow eyes are only on Eames. Their feet soundlessly drag up lines in the dust.
“They don't seem all that interested in me,” Arthur says as they back around the corner of the saloon and in through the swinging doors. “At least, not yet.”
The gunshots come out of nowhere – literally. There are no visible guns, not quite, but the projectiles are coming from the moving shadows and when Eames shoots back, one of them topples, falls, and remains on the ground.
“Duck!”
The second shadow sneaks up on them and Eames takes a bullet to the left lung before he can shoot it. Arthur grabs him and pulls him behind the bar, putting clumsy pressure on the wound.
“Pain is the cleanser,” Eames jokes, and coughs up blood.
Arthur is about to snap something back at him, but has to stop and shoot at the approaching projections.
The square/desert/forest is quiet for a moment. The shadows lie scattered lifelessly everywhere, leaking very red, human looking blood over the ground.
During the lull, Arthur aims his gun between Eames' eyes. The last thing Eames hears before he wakes up is a hissed: “Don't leave me here...please!”
Red digits show 0.03 when he jerks awake. His ribs burn like fire. The digits tick to 0.00 as he crawls over to the PASIV. Arthur doesn't stir. With a curse, Eames sets the timer and collapses on the floor as he falls under again.
The fight is long and bloody. Eames has never seen projections move like that, breaking the laws of physics by running up walls and pulling weapons out of every nook and cranny, but a bullet to the head is thankfully as efficient as always. He dies three times and the last one has him so shaken it takes him three minutes of real time to force himself back under.
But in the end, all the strange projections are dead.
“Hey?” he can't help but say as Arthur blinks awake. “You all right now? How many fingers am I holding up?”
Arthur gives him a look of such pure irritation that Eames can't help but grin in relief. “All right, we've got to – hey!” Eames makes an attempt at pushing Arthur back down onto the bed, but his burning side has him falling onto the bed with a groan.
“I'm getting the first aid kit,” Arthur mutters, face ashen, but Eames can just bet he looks ten times worse. There's blood on both the sheet and the carpet and his ribs are screaming.
Arthur sees to the wound, stitching it shut, and Eames does his best to complain as loudly as possible. Arthur says nothing, but some color returns to his face as he orders Eames to shut up. Eames, of course, does no such thing.
Wound sewn shut and bandaged – well bandaged – Eames finally drifts off to sleep. He wakes up hours later to the tapping of laptop keys. His vision is blurry at first, but he can make out the site Arthur’s on.
“Any reason you felt Laasya's mail needed a second visit?”
“Najjar's overdosed,” comes Arthur's curt reply. “Laasya's told him to call 'our chief of staff' for help.”
It takes Eames's brain a moment to catch up. “Ideas?”
“...I'll text Dom.”
Chapter 5: Evidence
Chapter Text
“...so as you can see, getting Mr. Najjar over there back to sanity and thus earning his gratitude and no doubt impressive lying skills, will get you, me, Arthur and the rest off the hook. I sure he'd be willing to pin it all on Laasya and Travi.”
“What about the architect?” Cobb muttered as Eames finally paused for breath.
“He won't be a problem.”
The lights flashed on for a second, making everyone in the small room jump, only to leave them in the dark again.
“They're here,” Arthur whispered. A shuffling sound came from his direction, followed by a grunt from Eames and the creaking of bed springs. Footsteps on the soft floor soon placed him closer to the door.
“Fine,” Cobb said suddenly. His voice was as curt as it had been before Eames' story, but the rage had died down, or at least redirected. “We're going under.”
“Wait!” Ariadne cut in, “let me get this straight, first.” She began alternating between pacing and darting nervous glances at the light leaking in from under the door. “This 'serum' you were selling, what was it supposed to do? And why aren't you,” she turned to face the vague silhouette of Arthur, “uhm, well, like Najjar?”
“Pure inspiration,” Eames groaned from his bed. “That's what Laasya marketed it as, at least. It's supposed to 'get you in contact' with your subconscious, or some such rot. Works, too, at least a little, but it fucks up dream architecture like you wouldn't believe! Not to mention the projections.” His breath hitched faintly. “Seems the sedative and the serum don't work too well, either, and combining that with overdosing...”
“If it stores in the fat cells, the effects should go away eventually,” Arthur continued. “But we've got no idea what will happen to 'Najjar' in the meantime. Since he overdosed while awake, we speculate that's why he was able to keep 'present', so to speak.”
“But since we used the PASIV the last time,” Ariadne said, her voice faint, “he has barely moved.”
“Which is why Arthur isn't going anywhere near one until he's better,” Eames said, shifting on his bed.
“So that's it?” Ariadne went on, as if she hadn't heard. “You think going in and shooting the hell out of all his projections will make him all better?”
“No, but lucky for us, I'm late for a reason,” Eames interjected. “Shooting at everything that moves was just Plan A. Here.” A soft rustling of paper traveled from Eames' bed to Yusuf. “Took a little digging, but Laasya always was rubbish at security. The entire formula should be there – plenty enough for you to cook up a stabilizer of some kind.”
“I'll need a lab, or a kitchen at the very least,” Yusuf muttered back, sitting up slowly. “I left all my supplies in the break room.”
“I'll cover you.”
“Are we still...?” Ariadne asked, gaze brushing over where Najjar still lay motionless.
A beat of silence. Then: “I'll be the dreamer," Eames said. "I know the architecture of the dream we first used on Najjar, and we don't have the time to exchange a way that has worked for a way that might work."
Cobb more or less slammed the PASIV open, but didn't say anything. Instead, the soft whirr of a line being pulled out could be heard.
Ariadne watched Yusuf and Arthur go with a lump in her throat. Then she stuck the needle into her arm and the familiar relaxation washed over her.
I should have been prepared for this, was the first thought to strike her as she found herself standing under a lush tree.
The air was wet and oppressively warm, but only for a moment. A gale of much drier heat rushed by from the left, calling her attention to the seamless transition the forest made into barren wasteland, sprinkled with concrete and wooden buildings in an illogical mix.
“As far as we can tell,” Eames suddenly said from over Ariadne's shoulder, and she barely had time to grit her teeth around a shriek of surprise, “or, well, guess, the serum messes with what passes for the laws of nature in here. The body can't decide what's foreground or background, and gravity shifts occasionally – or at least, the projections can ignore it when they please. So you should feel right at home!”
“These projections,” Ariadne mumbled, feeling for her gun, “what did they look like again?”
“Oh,” Eames hummed, following her line of sight to the darker shadows by the library, “something like that, I should imagine. You ready?”
Ariadne's nod was short and confident. She was biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. “Moving without running right into gunfire here doesn't look easy.”
“Yeah, but it's the only place where the mark knows the meet-up point,” Eames replied, cocking his gun. “I think I see Cobb over there. Let's get this over with quick – first one to die stays above and watches the rest of us, got it?”
“Got it.”
She hit the first projection right between the eyes, which had her stunned long enough to nearly get her left ear clipped off by a stray bullet. Eames pulled her to the ground and they both crawled as quickly as they could towards the saloon, occasionally pausing to cripple the projections.
Five close calls and seven bleeding wounds later, they found themselves at the saloon entrance. Cobb was already inside, taking aim at approaching shadows through a broken window.
“Mr. Najjar?” Ariadne called. “Mr. N-”
The shot was loud. Too loud to have come from outside, but not loud enough to have come from Cobb or Eames' gun.
A pair of wild eyes stared at Ariadne from across the room, hovering over a rifle barrel aimed at her. She didn't feel herself hit the wall or the floor – simply let the gun fall from her nerveless fingers and slid down, staring at the hole in her chest.
“I-I can't move!” she groaned. Or at least, she tried to.
Eames raised his gun and shot her in the head without hesitation.
They had been searching the place for hours, only to find locked doors and empty rooms.
Until this one.
The room was poorly lit in green by an exit sign and was sparsely furnished. Two men occupied it – only one of them had a gun.
Cooper lifted her finger to her lips in a hushing gesture, then motioned for Barnes to go around the corner. Seconds later, the man with the gun flinched as he found himself caught between three gun barrels split up in to doorways, aimed straight at his chest.
“Fuck,” the gunman groaned. He glared at them as he slowly lowered his firearm to the ground, but that was all. His beard made him look somewhat like a pissed-off bear cub.
Hernandez holstered her gun and got her handcuffs out, securing the man's hands behind his back with practiced ease. Then she turned to the other man, who sat curled up on the floor in a corner. His eyes were red, and though he wasn't shaking outright, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. A ghost with a machine gun.
“What's your name, kid?”
“Anas,” the kid – who had to be in his mid-twenties at the very least - whispered. “Are you the police?”
“FBI,” Hernandez reassured him, flipping her badge open. “We're here to arrest this man and his associates.” She wrestled the gunman up from the floor and whirled him around. “Have you-”
That's when the gunshot rang out.
Eames quickly lost count how many projections he'd killed. So far, none had killed him or Cobb. And so far, all Najjar had done was stare at the red stains left by Ariadne's long-since missing body and wave the rifle threateningly if anyone so much as looked at him.
The monotony was finally broken by a sob.
“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!”
Cobb flinched, but kept his eyes trained on the approaching projections. Eames glared at the back of his head. Guess it's up to me. Bastard.
“Easy there, Mr. Najjar,” Eames murmured, putting up his hands and doing his best not to look at the blood still left after Ariadne. Why the hell won't it go away like the rest of her?
He took a step closer to the bar. Najjar had lowered his rifle enough for Cobb to dare to go back to target practice on the projections, but Eames didn't feel like tempting fate by making any sudden movements.
“How's your head?”
Najjar blinked rapidly and his tongue darted out to wet his cracked lips. “M-my head?”
“Headache?” Eames asked, moving to place his gun on a nearby table. “Hearing voices? Sudden urges to molest eight year old boys?”
“Of course not!”
Eames threw a glance over at Cobb, who still had all his attention directed outside, then turned back to Najjar with a big smile on his face. “You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that.”
“Shit!”
The shot had brought both Hernandez and the gunman off of their feet and had sent them crashing to the floor, where a pool of blood now had begun to form, originating from somewhere near the gunman's left shoulder.
Cooper swallowed loudly. Barnes, standing in the doorway on the opposite side of the room, had his gun aimed at someone just behind her. She didn't have to turn around to feel the warm metal against the back of her head.
“I'd really rather not kill you,” a familiar feminine voice hissed into her ear. “FBI gets so very upset when they lose agents. My offer is this: you stay here, with me, until I know your two friends are outside, sans firearms. Then, I let you go.”
Cooper could hardly hear her above her own heart, which was beating like a jackhammer. “Do you honestly think we'd abandon civilians to execution?” The metal of the gun barrel was burning against her scalp. She swallowed, trying to force the huge lump in her throat down.
The voice chuckled. “We'll be long gone by then, and you'll have suspects left. Our ring leader is here, after all. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if his target is dead already, and Dave there won't last more than an hour or two without medical care. Which won't be arriving for another few hours, by the way – I made sure of that." Another chuckle. "Face it, it's a lose/lose situation, with one slightly better option.”
Someone cocked a gun. It wasn't Hernandez. Neither was it Barnes.
“I wouldn't be so sure about that.”
This time it was the feminine voice who cursed. Cooper felt the warm metal leave the back of her head and dared turn enough to spot Arthur standing in the hallway outside. His fancy clothes looked less fancy, shirt bloody and a belt strapped around one of his upper arms. He also had a gun trained on her would-be blackmailer.
“Where's your sister, Ms. Keiba?” Arthur's gaze was locked on 'Ms. Keiba' and Cooper tightened her grip on her gun, but didn't raise it from where it pointed at the floor. “And gun on the ground, please.”
“Wouldn't you like to know,” Ms. Keiba spat back, then crouched, hands out, gun held in a loose upside-down grip. A hair's breadth from the ground she snatched it up again and made to dive for Arthur's legs, throwing her entire weight into toppling him over.
This earned her a pistol whipping from Arthur.
Cooper, Anas and Barnes could all only stare warily as Ms. Keiba groaned and crumbled into a heap on the floor. Hernandez was too busy putting pressure on the gunman Dave's shoulder to look.
Arthur kicked Ms. Keiba's gun away into the room. It stopped when it hit Cooper's left foot. Then he put the safety back on his own firearm. “I suggest you handcuff her before she gets back up.”
After a second's hesitation, Cooper did as asked, cuffing Ms. Keiba's hands behind her back with less grace but no less security than Hernandez.
Arthur didn't move. Instead, he waited for Cooper to finish and drag Ms. Keiba to her feet, then said:
“Mr Cobb is currently working to restore Mr. Najjar's very shaky sanity. Another of his team is off finding medicine that might be helpful as well. This dream center’s employees have done nothing illegal, I assure you.”
“Except for participating in a shootout!” Barnes cut in, cheeks, chin, and forehead tomato red with rage.
“In self-defense,” Arthur spoke calmly. “I have a license for this and very good lawyers. Is that really what you want to waste your time with?” Before anyone could as much as open their mouths, he continued: “There was a group of psychologists here, called in as a favor by Mr. Cobb. They ended up in an unfortunate dispute with enemies of the patient, who'd drugged him against his will and now wanted to cover this up. FBI came in to save the day.”
“What are you-”
“That,” Arthur interrupted, voice firm and deceptively quiet, “is the official version. Unless you'd prefer your fairly illegal stalking of Mr. Cobb to become public knowledge? I highly doubt bugging an innocent man's work phone for nine months will go over very well with the authorities, police connections or no.”
Barnes' tomato color quickly shifted to a more garlic shade. “How did you...?”
Something akin to a smirk twitched the corner of Arthur's lips. “I have my sources. Stay here and wait for the ambulance I'm sure the police have brought with them. I still have work to do.”
They all watched him go in silence – even Barnes delayed cursing his head off until the sound of footsteps died away.
Travi stumbled into the room and fumbled for the light switch without success. The room was dark, almost too dark for her to be able to make out the three unmoving silhouettes on the foldout beds. She gripped her gun with both hands and aimed it at the man in the middle. She gritted her teeth.
The door swung shut behind her with a soft thud. And without her touching it.
“Drop the gun!”
Travi started and slowly turned around. There was a girl behind her, gun in one hand, the other resting on the door.
“I said: drop the gun!”
“Do you really want me to just throw this thing around?” Travi murmured, forcing her lips into a smile that went nowhere near her eyes. “The room might be padded, but ricocheting does-”
“You'd better do as she says.”
There was no real light in the room other than the faint glow pooling in from under the door, so the gun barrel didn’t shine. It was, however, in the hand of a no longer sleeping Mr. Cobb.
“Better do as he says,” a second voice grumbled from the bed furthest to the left. “He just got his head ripped off. Tends to make a guy cranky, know what I mean?”
Something nudged her between the shoulder-blades. She hadn't even heard the girl approach.
“Drop. The. Gun!”
And she did.
“You think it's going to work?”
Yusuf gave Eames a glare, as if he'd just been asked if he could count to ten. “If I didn't, would I try?”
“You're the mad scientist,” Eames mocked, gingerly stretching out on his foldout bed.
Yusuf muttered something that sounded like, “Be glad I am, or I wouldn't have brought my own supplies,” before turning back to the still-sleeping Mr. Najjar.
Ariadne and Cobb were hovering near the edge of Najjar's bed, staring intently at the syringe in Yusuf's hand – or, more precisely, the liquid inside said syringe.
Arthur, on the other hand, had chosen to stand guard, back turned to the rest of the room's occupants. Still, he joined the others in hold their breaths while Yusuf pierced Najjar's skin with the syringe's needle.
Half a minute later, Najjar started awake with a shriek.
“Great,” muttered Eames. “Now all we've got to do is get out of here before the police show up.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I'll make sure to tell them that. Uh-huh. Yes. Goodbye, Dom.”
“Ariadne's plane just took off.”
Arthur looked up from his cellphone, his expression blank. “Good. Dom just told me whatever charges the FBI had against us seem to have been dropped and the Keiba sisters are awaiting trial, with Dom, his coworker, and Najjar standing as witnesses against them. We have, thankfully, been left out of all reports.”
“You and Dom still on speaking terms?”
Snapping his phone shut, Arthur shrugged. “Amazingly, yes. No thanks to you, I might add. And he's very convinced this is all going to backfire horribly, so my best advice is to keep far away from him and the States for at least six months.”
Eames' face split in a grin that had just a hint of smugness to it. “All's well that ends well, right?”
Arthur rolled his eyes, but fell into step with him as they walked away from the gate.
“So, where are you going now?” Eames asked after they'd passed three tax free gift shops.
“We are going to France. You owe me a vacation.”
This time the grin wasn't smug so much as pleased. “I do, do I?”
Arthur sighed. “Just get us tickets.”
Chapter 6: Epilogue
Chapter Text
“Hey, have a nice trip?”
“Huh? Oh, hi Marie, didn't know you'd still be here. Has the cat starved to death?”
“Not yet. Pizza? ”
“Thanks, I'm fine. Did you bring your laptop?”
“Is that even a question?”
“Good. I've got some interesting data for us to tinker with.”
“When do I get to go home?”
“When you're done. Wouldn't look good if you skipped town before Mr. Najjar has fully recovered. And the packets you send off to France would undoubtedly be more heavily inspected as well.”
“Hmph!”
“Dad! Dad, look what I got from Robin! It's a robot!”
“Let's me see.”
“It's got laser and everything!”
“Very impressive! Why don't you show uncle Yusuf how it works, while I fix dinner?”
“Fine, fine, I can take a hint. Come James, your father wishes to be left alone with his pancakes.”
“Scoot over.”
“I hardly have room as it is.”
“I do so love it when you sweet talk me, Arthur. And of the two of us, I'm the one who needs more space. It's a pure matter of physics.“
“You could have sprung for a bigger room.”
“With two beds? I don't think so.”
“I was thinking along the lines of bigger bed.”
“Ah, but that would give me less of an excuse to do this every chance I get!”
“...bastard.”
“Good, then?”
“If you need to ask...”
“...”
“Did I tell you to stop?”
Ceewelsh on Chapter 6 Wed 14 Oct 2020 11:56PM UTC
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Nonesensed on Chapter 6 Tue 20 Oct 2020 04:49PM UTC
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