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In the spring, Saito asks Arthur for two things.
The first is to arrange the Proclus Global HQ's hanami. It is something Saito usually leaves to the secretarial division ("The secret caporegimes of your Tokyo Cosa Nostra, you mean," Arthur says with a laugh), but this year, Arthur knows, it's even less of a flower viewing than usual. This year, it's a test for Arthur.
So Arthur rents out a mountain and actually builds streams into the sakura clearing, so that when the petals fall they float like thousands of boats, searching aimlessly for the foot of the mountain. He lays a branch at the seat of every employee, made of paper and wire so cleverly put together that it takes the revelers ages to realize they unravel into ancient poetry written by centuries of hanami attendants. He orders bento boxes that each feature a perfect crystalline sugar flower in the center, nestled against sea bream and toro sashimi carved to mimic the petals, and chilled tofu perfectly pressed with a pickled blossom. He serves sakuramochi in bowls carved out of ice and dotted with sakura frozen into the water. "To symbolize impermanence," he says, laughing, and then pours more sake without looking at Saito, and after everyone leaves that evening Saito orders the driver to take them to the Proclus gardens, where he fucks Arthur ruthlessly, Arthur's hands trembling, white and ephemeral, against the black bark of Saito's shoulder.
The second thing is to come to his house to celebrate his wife's 45th birthday. "As my personal assistant," Saito says, drawing a possessive hand over the lapels of Arthur's suit, leaning in, heavy with the smell of Acqua di Parma Colonia and his cigarette break.
After a pause, Arthur asks, "Does your wife even know my name?"
"You know hers," Saito says and kisses him, hard enough to be almost brutal.
So the next day Arthur puts on his best suit, packs a bag, and flies out to Los Angeles, where Cobb had half-heartedly asked him to help out with a job, a simple one, only two levels and very little risk of getting caught. Cobb doesn't ask questions when he opens the door and finds Arthur barely jetlagged and already planning the layout of the second level, just installs him in the guest bedroom and tells James not to touch Arthur's laptop, please and thank you. And when that job ends and the client immediately offers another, Arthur does that one too, and when that one ends, Arthur finds Cobb another one, and when that one ends, Arthur flies to Madrid, where he finds Eames in the Thyssen-Bornemisza, scrutinizing an early Cezanne.
"Well?" Arthur says, raising an eyebrow.
Eames smiles as he straightens up. "Darling," he says, and nothing else.
*
Eames' client is older than Eames by only a handful of years, but richer by several billions, and goes by just his purported last name: Sokolski. For the last seven years, he's hired Eames to forge, steal, and replace with forgery all the paintings in a certain room in the Thyssen-Bornemisza. "The Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza side, just to be even more eccentric," Eames stresses over beer and garlic chicken.
"And just one room?" Arthur asks.
"Just one. I don't think he even likes all the paintings. In fact," Eames muses, "I'm not even sure he likes art."
"I don't," Sokolski agrees a week later, when they're done shipping off Sisley's "Flood at Port-Marly" and the three of them are crowded together against the afternoon rush of a tapas bar. Eames, on the other side of Sokolski, has already succeeded in getting a number from the redhead sitting next to him. Sokolski gives him a glance that is almost fond before turning back to Arthur. "I leave the paintings in an attic," he explains apologetically. "I never look at them."
"What's the point then?"
"Oh," Sokolski says, spearing his potatoes with a delicate gesture that Arthur immediately tries to imitate, "to know I have them, of course." He scrutinizes Arthur, comes up with something Arthur can't even begin to fathom, and then smiles. "When you have almost everything, you begin taking pleasure in the act of possession."
Six hours later Arthur is sprawled out on Sokolski's hotel bed, drunk, half-naked, and almost giggling when Sokolski undresses him the rest of the way. "Your eyes," Sokolski breathes against his mouth, biting at Arthur's tongue when he gives it. "They're too dark for the rest of your face."
"What?" Arthur mumbles, fumbling with the zipper on Sokolski's pants, and whatever Sokolski says as he slicks two fingers into Arthur, Arthur can't hear it over his own moans.
In the morning, Arthur wakes up to Sokolski mouthing his elbow. Sokolski smells of sweat, and sex, and bergamot and sandalwood. He smells like cigarettes, he smells like hotel sheets, and he smells like Saito.
"When I steal you away, how dirty will your owner fight?" Sokolski murmurs, jacking Arthur slowly, his grip firm, and Arthur hisses, "Why do you think I belong to anyone?" through clenched teeth, and Sokolski shakes his head, his hand moving faster.
He doesn't answer Arthur's question, but anyway, the time for words passes.
*
Arthur travels with Sokolski for two weeks, helping with what Sokolski calls modestly his "import-export business" before Saito finds them. Or rather, there are some men who tail them from the market and back, and it doesn't take long for Arthur to figure out whom they work for.
"I am a rich man," Sokolski says, shaking his head in disbelief when Arthur disarms one in the corridor of their rented house, "but Proclus Global--"
Sokolski fucks him one last time in Popayan, in that white colonial house with the windows open, bathed in the warmest midday sun. Sokolski's hair is made golden by the light, and Arthur runs his hands through it, gripping it, twisting it as Sokolski thrusts into him. He comes hard, inelegantly, before Sokolski does, and when he opens his eyes, he sees a strange expression on the other man's face, like something straddling loss and greediness in a way that was too complicated for him to follow.
He's grateful that Sokolski looks away when he finally comes.
*
Arthur manages to lose Eames at El Dorado, but Eames finds him again at Bush. They pretend to look over a rack of magazines, Arthur palming a Vitamin Water back and forth, and the silence stretches on forever before Eames shoves his hands in his pockets and says, "Tell me honestly. You and Saito--"
But there are no words for what they need to say to each other. There never have been. Finally Eames turns to face Arthur, and Arthur puts down the issue of The Economist that he's been pretending to browse through. "It's fine," Arthur tells him. He looks Eames in the eye, and holds that gaze for a while, unwavering. He is wearing Sokolski's tie, Saito's watch, and the smile that scared Eames months ago when they were roaring down the highway in the Koenigsegg.
"I'll still come pick you up," Eames says, his mouth twisted in a wry shape that Arthur knows is supposed to be a grin. "Anytime you want."
For all his pretense, Arthur knows, Eames is clumsy with his affections. And maybe that's why Arthur has never taken him seriously, not even for a second. Maybe, in another world, where they were different people--
But there is nothing to consider here, so Arthur repeats, "It's fine," and leaves.
*
At Narita International, Saito's chauffeur is waiting with a sign that simply states "ARTHUR" in all caps. He drives Arthur to the Proclus Global headquarters. Arthur didn't even bother giving him instructions otherwise.
Saito is talking with what Arthur recognizes to be a close competitor's CEO in the ground floor lobby. His whole body is a relaxed line, like nothing could faze him. A few months ago, Arthur would have said it was coincidence, but now, he knows better, and now, he doesn't even flinch when Saito grabs his wrist as he tries to pass by unnoticed.
"I was sorry to hear about your mother's illness. Her health is much improved now?" Saito asks without preamble.
Arthur retorts, in English, "You tell me."
He makes his way to the elevators, leaving the CEO gaping and Saito narrowing his eyes against his back. By the time Saito walks back into his office, Arthur is already at his own desk, sorting through the waiting documents like he hasn't been gone for months. Saito stands behind him for restless minutes, very still and very quiet, and Arthur watches the reflection of his face in the glare of the laptop screen and thinks, too dark for your face, when Saito narrows his eyes. Sokolski's voice, pretending a playfulness that his words belied. Like a man discovering he did not mind drowning to death.
They don't say a single word to each other the entire afternoon, and in the evening, when they leave the building together, Saito directs the driver to take "Arthur-san to his own apartment," even though Arthur has never actually had his own in Tokyo. It's fully furnished, of course, and has all his clothes hanging in the wardrobe and all his accustomed drinks and breakfast foods in the fridge, even his toothbrush in a cup by the sink.
And though Saito doesn't follow him up, Arthur can still smell him in the air: citrus, and sandalwood, and something that was like greed, and something that was like anger.
*
I hope you know what you're doing, Ariadne had told him, and Arthur did and still does, but somewhere along the way, something got complicated.
You'll never be happy being second best, Cobb had predicted, and it's true, Arthur never had been, and he never will be, but somewhere along the way, he lost sight of what was first.
Would he stop looking for you, if you told him to? Eames had asked him, and if Arthur told Saito to, he would, but somewhere along the way, he realized he didn't know how to tell Saito to stop.
You are always free to leave, Saito had said, and Arthur thinks, he is still free, but somewhere along the way--
*
In the summer Saito doesn't ask a single thing of Arthur.
Arthur stays in his pretense of an apartment. After a while, it stops being a pretense. He doesn't know who pays the rent and the utilities, and he doesn't ask.
In August, Sokolski sends a cautious email to Arthur, telling him he would be in Tokyo. For a layover, he writes. Just long enough for a drink.
He ends up staying the night, and the next, but finally, the second morning they're eating breakfast together in the hotel buffet, he glides his fingers over the knuckles of Arthur's left hand and says, "You're using me."
"I would never," Arthur snaps.
"It's a strange feeling, being used," Sokolski continues. "It scares me because I don't think I dislike it." He smiles, too sadly for it to match the sly, playful way he steals Arthur's slice of buttered toast.
This Arthur knows: Sokolski's eyes are a bright blue, the color of frost on a December morning, and of mountain air when you are very high up, and everything is clean and polished and simple. They are eyes that can never be too dark.
And maybe that's why in early September, Eames calls Arthur at three in the morning, pissed out of his mind. "Stop fucking up my life," he demands, slurring his words from somewhere in Neumunster. "If you want to fuck up yours, fine, but leave me and Sokolski out of it--"
"What happened to Sokolski?" Arthur asks, trying to ignore the cold feeling in his stomach.
"He told me he's giving up on the Thyssen-Bornemisza job. And don't you fucking try to deny it, I know you're behind this--"
Arthur hangs up on him, which is how maybe 70% of their phone calls end anyway. He tries to go to sleep, and fails, and makes coffee instead. Then he sits in his empty, pretense-no-longer apartment, and waits for the morning.
*
Cobb calls him, routinely, once a week, without fail on Wednesday morning. This time, he asks, "Do you remember how Mal got me to propose to her?"
"Yes, only because you've told me multiple times," Arthur says, absently drinking his coffee and checking the Nikkei Index. He cradles the phone a little closer to his ear when he sees that Proclus Global's stock is still climbing. He thinks he can hear Phillipa banging her way through piano practice on Cobb's side, and he smiles.
"She said, 'Stop running now,'" Cobb continues, oblivious.
"Yes," Arthur says, laughing. "And then she said, 'Now or never, Dom. This isn't a dream. You can't snap your fingers and start over again until you get it right.'"
"Arthur," Cobb says.
"Cobb," Arthur says.
"Stop running now," Cobb says, and hangs up.
And there are a thousand things Arthur could say to that. That he wasn't running. That this was a game of running from the very beginning. That it was not at all like Cobb and Mal, that this was not a grand romance which would end in proclamations of love. That there was nowhere for Arthur to return to, now that Cobb had his children back. That Saito was already married. That it was Saito who started this. That he was sure if he fell into limbo, Saito wouldn't come in after him. That there was no 'right' to get, so what was he supposed to start, what was he supposed to be running from, what was the dream he was trying to perfect?
"Tell that to Saito," Arthur grouses at his phone, and of course Cobb doesn't reply.
*
Still though, Arthur thinks about Cobb, and running away, and Saito. And then he makes some phone calls, and then he makes some plans, and then he doesn't do anything with them for days. He thinks about them while he processes paperwork. He thinks about them when he reorganizes the entire legal department. He thinks about them when he's in the boardroom with the heads of the subsidiaries, and he spots a gaping hole the size of several months of back pay and several layers of cover-up, and he passes a note to Saito with the words SOMETHING STINKS scrawled hurriedly and underlined twice with Saito's pen.
Saito taps Arthur's arm. When Arthur turns towards him on the pretense of taking a sip of water, Saito taps his arm again, so Arthur leans in, and Saito all but kisses Arthur on the ear, his tongue sleek and wet and so near, when he whispers, "Well, what shall we do about it?"
"'We'?" Arthur whispers back over the rim of his glass, and Saito flashes him a grin, lowering his voice so it was mere vibrations against Arthur's throat when he says, "You, then. Just you."
He raises his hand as if to brush a piece of hair away from Arthur's collar. His fingernail catches against Arthur's skin. It is the closest they have been for months, and Arthur doesn't hear anything else for the rest of the meeting. He hurries out of the room to jerk off in the bathroom, trying his hardest not to whine when he finally comes all over his hands and the stall divider, trying not to hope for Saito to walk in, lock the bathroom door, and fuck him on the floor, sanitation be damned.
That evening Arthur is in the kitchen of Saito's private mansion when Saito comes home. Saito pulls off his tie, tosses it over the back of the couch, and gives Arthur a raised eyebrow, so Arthur passes him a cup of freshly brewed green tea, and Saito takes it without comment.
Five minutes later, they wake up in Arthur's dream.
*
Proclivities, threats, and unspoken fantasies aside, Arthur has never tied anyone to anything with anything during sex. To be honest, he's never really gotten off on it before either, except for that one night in Paris where Ariadne showed up at his apartment with a box of newly purchased ties from Pink, two bottles of cotes du rhone, a kiss, and a promise. He almost came the moment she bound his wrists, tight enough so he could feel it but not tight enough so he couldn't escape, his eyes blindfolded with another one, and the feel of a third around his neck, a gently knotted reminder. Jesus, Arthur, she had breathed against his cheek, are you always this easy? and he didn't trust himself to speak, just jerked helplessly against her palm on his cock.
So that, at least, is part of the reason why he's nervous when he wakes up to Saito's wrists handcuffed to the headboard of an absolutely enormous bed.
Is this what you want? Cobb had asked the last time they saw each other in person. He had meant, this running away, this being in LA when you should be in Tokyo, this evasion, this sleight of hand. But Arthur thinks about it now, and he thinks, yes, maybe.
Maybe something got complicated along the way, and that's how he wants it.
"Well, what are we going to do about this?" Saito asks, one side of his mouth quirked sardonically, clenching one of his hands just to hear the rattle of the handcuffs, and Arthur mouths the word, we?, and they both smile, showing each other their teeth.
*
This is Arthur's plan:
He is wearing the Zegna suit Saito bought him for his birthday, a slate grey that was just a touch lighter than black so that in a crowd, Saito was always able to find him. He loosens the collar of his shirt and takes off his pants, but nothing else. Saito is, inexplicably, dressed in the strange half-Japanese, half-Western outfit Arthur invented for him in the castle level of their first dream meeting. Pristine folds, the starkest of blacks and whites, and Saito glances down at himself, back at Arthur, and sets his mouth in a line that Arthur knows well, the line that said, we'll play by your rules for now.
Arthur straddles Saito on the bed, belatedly grinding his ass against Saito's cock when he shuffles forward. Saito twitches, jerks up to meet him, and Arthur laughs the first time Saito pulls against the cuffs, forgetting they're there, trying to get his hands on Arthur's hips, to make him do it again. Arthur rises back up on his knees, pushes his briefs down to mid-thigh so he can get a hand around his own cock, and Saito's eyes are like brands against Arthur's skin, trying to burn through the metal binding him to the bed.
"I feel self-conscious," Arthur murmurs, fisting his cock hard and trying not to groan as he leans in, his mouth almost pressing against Saito's forehead, and Saito growls, hungry and violent as Arthur runs a thumb over his slit, bucking into his own hands and letting breathy moans wash over Saito's face. He presses against Saito's lap again, grinding Saitos' clothed cock against his ass, unable to control how good it felt, even in a dream, and Saito involuntarily snaps his hips, which Arthur rides with a breathless laugh.
"Finish this," Saito snarls. Arthur shakes his head, trying to slow down his own frantic strokes, but Saito sinks his teeth into Arthur's exposed neck, and Arthur comes with a wild cry, spurting over Saito's perfectly pressed suit, the feel of Saito's bite, sharp and distinct, carrying him over.
Edith Piaf starts in a few seconds later. Arthur blinks the wetness from his eyes and stares down at Saito's face, the frustrated, almost animalistic glaze of Saito's gaze, and he kisses him, wrapping both hands in Saito's hair, still perfectly coiffed in the dream. That's the discrepancy that kicks him back up into reality, where he wakes up and is immediately thrown against the wall, Saito's strong grip against his shoulders pressing him hard enough to leave bruises on his scapula. Saito slashes at the collar of Arthur's shirt, ripping the buttons away, but when Arthur throws his head back to expose the line of his neck, Saito just stares.
"Saito," Arthur manages to croak out, licking his lips. He can smell it: his own come, even though it was just in a dream, and the smell of Saito, spice and leather and heat. The feel of Saito pressing against him, his body lithe and iron, too dangerous to fuck around with. But Saito just says, "Okay, okay," touching that hollow spot where Arthur's neck joins his shoulder, where in the dream he had bitten Arthur so hard as to break skin.
When Arthur opens his eyes, Saito is gone.
*
Arthur texts Cobb the next Wednesday, What do you do when your reality becomes more dream-like than your dreams?
Fifteen minutes later, Cobb calls Arthur's phone. Arthur doesn't pick up. He lets it go to voicemail. As he watches Cobb's name on the display screen, he touches that spot on his neck. He presses against it, and waits.
*
In October, Arthur thinks of an elaborate plan to check whether Quantum Corp stole Proclus Global's design for a new pipe valve. It involves him going undercover, which to be honest has been more difficult since the mess with AltaTech, but Arthur manages through sheer determination and not inconsiderable charisma to get into the upper echelons of the engineering department.
Every Friday night he meets Saito at a bar. Saito wears tweed and glasses, and Arthur doesn't gel back his hair and shows up occasionally in leather jackets and drop-crotch pants, and more than once one of Saito's secondary personal assistants walks by them without giving them a backwards glance. Arthur manages to get enough files for blackmail, but more importantly they fuck every night in the bar bathroom, Saito drawing it out long enough each time that it pushes Arthur past English, past words.
The last time, Saito lights a cigarette, takes a drag, and presses it to Arthur's lips. "Tell me," he says, his voice flinty, "is it better when we pretend to be different people?"
Arthur takes an acrid lungful of the smoke and breathes it out into Saito's open mouth. "No," he admits, struggling to pull himself and his clothing back together, and Saito walks out of the bathroom before Arthur's done.
*
Possession is a two-way street. There is ownership in letting yourself be taken over. After all, a leash is a rope that works both ways, and both ways are about control. Arthur knew this already when he started. He didn't need Sokolski to teach him. But maybe, he needed Saito to remind him.
He moves back into Saito's private mansion. They don't talk about it. Saito fucks him that night, hard enough to almost break the wall behind the bed, and Arthur is sore the next day, almost too sore to sit down, and he thinks, Yes, Cobb, this is what I want.
*
In the winter, Arthur asks two things from Saito.
The first is to take Arthur, Saito's wife, and the visiting diplomat from Russia ("A family friend, only," Saito warns, when Arthur gives him a look) to the ballet. "I have heard so much about you," Satsuki tells Arthur during the second act, her gloved hand on his elbow. "My husband speaks so highly of you," and Arthur smiles with his lips closed, and puts his cold hand over her cold fingers, and doesn't say anything.
The second is to fuck Arthur in the Tokyo apartment, which they do, on the couch, against the kitchen counter, once in the genkan while Arthur is still wearing one shoe. Saito folds him almost in half against the wall and when they both come, shouting, they collapse on the ground, Arthur's heels still hooked around Saito's shoulders. Saito cards his fingers through Arthur's sweaty bangs, and murmurs something in Japanese too low and too affectionate for Arthur to comprehend. He lets Arthur stretch out on the floor, undresses him slowly, and leaves kiss and bite marks down Arthur's sides, along his collarbones, in the inside of Arthur's thighs. They are like petals frozen in the ice of Arthur's skin, and Arthur wonders, is this also a symbol of impermanence?
"What made you come back?" Saito asks, biting Arthur's ankle, making Arthur curl his toes and let out a breathy, tired sigh.
"When you have nothing," Arthur tells him, "you take pleasure in the act of being possessed."
Saito gazes at him from under half-lowered eyelids, and for a few minutes, Arthur pretends that Saito understands.
*
(A week later Sokolski sends Arthur a Canaletto.
Arthur hangs it in the living room of his apartment with a smile.)
Les paupières closes tu ne vois rien de sombre
Je suis ta chose
À tes côtés je perds mes songes
Les paupières closes
Une poussière d’ombre
Je suis ta chose
À tes côtés je perds mes songes
-- Alizee, "Par Les Paupières"