Proof of Life

[alchemyalice]

Title: Proof of Life
Genre and/or Pairing: Arthur/Cobb
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: None, really.
Word Count: ~1,400
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: For the inception_kink prompt here. Cobb gets a call when there's nothing wrong, but really there is.



The call came at 1:52 AM, which wouldn't be so unusual if it was from Eames, or occasionally even Ariadne, if she'd been studying too hard and didn't know what time it was in Paris, let alone Los Angeles. But the number that came up on caller ID belonged to the one person Cobb knew would never have forgotten time zones, or ceased to be courteous in observing them.

He answered on the first ring. "Arthur?"

"Hi, Cobb. Do you have a minute?"

Cobb swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit up, and pushed a hand through his hair. Arthur sounded...measured. His breath was thin but even down the line. "As many as you need," Cobb answered, after a second. "What's the matter?"

The next exhale was too sharp and sudden, but it was followed by, "It's not an emergency, or anything. Sorry for waking you."

Still conscious of time differences, Cobb thought. That's a good start.

"I just needed to talk to you for a second," Arthur continued. There was an almost infinitesimal hitch on just.

Cobb gripped the receiver harder, but replied neutrally. "Sure thing. How's the job in Madrid going?"

"Fine." The answer was a little too quick. "It's fine, it's on schedule.”

“Good,” he said, perhaps a bit leadingly. “The payoff is going to be good too, right?”

“Has to be, for what they’re asking for,” Arthur replied, with a note of irritation. “These people have no idea the intricacy of the work we do.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Cobb said dryly. It was an old rant between them, but he let Arthur run through it, adding his own two cents where appropriate, along with a quiet laugh when Arthur directed a particularly disdainful and clever jab at one of their former employers.

After a few minutes, Arthur ran out of steam, and they fell into an easier silence. Cobb listened to him breathe. It began smooth, but then there was that tiny hitch again, and suddenly Cobb wanted to hit something. Hard.

“So work is good?” he prompted again.

“I said so, didn’t I?” Arthur replied. Then he paused, and more quietly he added, “There was a small incident yesterday, but nothing dire, and it's all been fixed now."

Cobb hummed, flexing his free hand on his thigh. He had a gun in the dresser, but it was hardly appropriate now, despite his instincts screaming for it. “What happened?” he asked eventually.

Arthur hesitated before answering, and Cobb got the distinct impression that he was holding his breath. “Arthur?” he inquired, as lightly as possible.

“Yeah…yeah.” Another pause, punctuated by a whisper of cloth—Arthur’s shoulder sliding against a wall, perhaps. He cleared his throat. “There was a slight imbalance in the Somnacin dosages. Careless mistake on the part of the chemist—“

“Who, Yusuf?” Cobb cut in, on impulse.

Arthur laughed, though it’s more like a startled huff. “No way—the job’s difficult, but not that difficult. Yusuf’s too expensive. I think you spoiled him.”

“If there’s talent…” Cobb started, the shrug implied.

“Yeah, yeah,” came the wry response over the line, and the voice was steadier now, though still rough and tight. “You fork over the cash for it. Clearly I didn’t fork over enough this time.”

“What happened?” Cobb asked, again.

There was a second, extended rasping sound, followed by a muffled impact.

And suddenly Cobb knew exactly what Arthur was doing. He saw it clearly, had seen it before and done it himself when things got rough and even the hotel rooms started feeling like prison cells. He rose and went to the door of the bedroom, and echoed Arthur's movements, what they always used to do on days like that—leaned back against the wooden surface and slid down, folding himself up onto the floor before letting his head tip back against the panels.

Arthur must have been listening to Cobb’s movements and recognized them as well, because suddenly there’s a high, strangled sound of distress over the line that Cobb knew Arthur would have done anything to hold back if he could, and suddenly he wanted to be in Madrid so badly his chest hurt with it. He clutched at the phone.

“Arthur.”

Arthur swallowed audibly, and then after an interminable moment, his voice came through low and strained, nearly noninflected. “We were practicing a con. Just a preliminary walk through, nothing serious, but our extractor was the dreamer, and for some reason her dose cut out way before anyone else’s did. The dream collapsed in on us, and not in a proper way either. Eames and I got crushed—didn’t even have time to get bullets through our brains in time. I got trapped until the dream ended entirely. And...Eames bled out. Falling rebar severed an artery. It took five minutes.”

Cobb swallowed. Accidents happened, especially in dreams, but most of them could be taken care of with swift jumps off of tall buildings, or quick shots to the head. Slow death was never fun or preferable, dreaming or not. Cobb had experienced it once, and watched it happen to someone else twice. He wasn’t sure which was worse. And five minutes…five minutes was a very long time.

“How did he take it?” he asked.

Arthur laughed, and it sounded painful. “Like a goddamn professional, what do you think? You know what Eames is like; everything’s just a game he plays to win.”

“And how are you taking it?”

The laugh cut off abruptly, like someone had choked him. Cobb bowed his head over the phone, listening to Arthur as he took in long, slow breaths through his nose and stayed stoically, stubbornly silent. He supposed that was as much of an answer as he was going to get.

After a second, he said, “Eames is fine. Your chemist is an idiot, but Eames is fine, and you’re fine. Like you said—a small incident.”

“Yeah,” Arthur said hollowly. “Small.”

Cobb took a breath and let it out. “Arthur,” he said, even though he knew Arthur hated what he was about to say, “What’s wrong?”

For a long and awful second, he was almost certain that Arthur had hung up. But then there was a hard, suppressed sound like a cross between a sob and a cough, and after what seemed an age Arthur's voice came down the line, quiet and dull and even.

“It’s early yet in planning. We just wanted to set some groundwork, go through some motions so they’ll feel natural even while we make adjustments. Eames hasn’t had time to shadow and learn his mark yet. So he forged a filler persona. He forged you.”

Cobb paused. Then he said, "I hope it was a respectful likeness?"

"Dom."

He closed his eyes, and fought to keep his own voice steady.

“Arthur. You’ve watched me die lots of times.”

“Not for five minutes,” Arthur snapped, suddenly ragged and harsh. “Not for five minutes when I couldn’t reach my totem because my arms were pinned beneath cement blocks. Not for five minutes while Eames refused to change back because he’s a son of a bitch who likes a challenge, who thinks it’s a game to see whether he can hold a forgery even while dying a horrible death. I can’t even fucking sleep here anymore because I keep seeing your goddamn face, getting paler and paler while the wreckage under you gets redder and redder. I don’t even dream properly anymore and I still see you when I close my eyes. I’m still seeing you, Dom.”

“Arthur,” Cobb whispered. “Arthur, stop.”

He listened to hitching breath and hard, frustrated swallows. When it abated into silence, he said into the phone, “Fuck the job. You don’t need the money, your chemist is shit, and Eames is a bastard. Apologize to your employer and come here and see the children. They miss you. I miss you.” He paused. “Is...is that feasible?”

There was a long silence. And then, “It’s not ideal. But yeah, it’s feasible.”

“Good. Text me your flight time, I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“…Okay. Yeah, okay.”

“Arthur.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know that,” Arthur replied, with a hint of impatience.

Cobb nodded, even though the gesture was lost over the line. “Try and get some sleep,” he said eventually.

He could almost hear Arthur’s grimace. “Too late for that. I was supposed to be meeting the group an hour ago; they probably think I’ve gone AWOL already. I’ll…I’ll just tie up loose ends, and then. Yeah. I’ll let you know when I get in.”

“Okay.”

“Good night, Dom.”

Cobb exhaled. “Good night, Arthur.”

The line went dead.

Cobb rested his head on the door, and waited for morning.



Edit: This now has a sequel. Find it here.