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Reality Bleed

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Summary: While testing a new drug for Yusuf that is supposed to enhance senses in a dream, Arthur starts to panic and ends up getting far more than he bargained for.

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. They belong, or should completely belong, to Christopher Nolan.

I apologize for the late update. I think we all noticed how the site shorted out, though, so I imagine you guys weren't too concerned/surprised when I didn't post as scheduled.

We are now COMPLETE! Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorite the story! Deeply appreciated!

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Chapter Four: What Is and Is Not Worth It

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When Arthur woke up, it was a slow process. He felt like he was moving through some sort of thick sludge and that he'd never break to the surface. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat and for an awful second, Arthur had been sure that hearing his heart beating like that meant he was back in the dream. It took a few seconds to realize that he was waking up because someone was patting him on the cheek. It felt gentle, normal and then Arthur's fuzzy brain realized he wasn't in the dream after all. If he had been, that little pat would have felt like a sledgehammer, probably.

"Arthur?"

"Hmm?" Arthur mumbled, not really willing to give much more than that.

He heard some muffled conversation around him and his tired, overtaxed brain didn't really want to put in the effort to follow it. After some span of time, words seemed to be directed at him again and he tried to focus.

"Arthur, can you open your eyes for us?"

That would be the real test, wouldn't it? There was no way to duplicate his sight in the dream. What if his senses were making themselves known in waves again, as soon as his brain could even process all of the input? No, not happening.

"Come on, Arthur, we need to talk for just a second."

"Arthur?"

He knew who the second person was in an instant - Cobb, calling him to wake up, to be ready to go. With a groan, Arthur opened his eyes and saw so blessedly little he almost cried.

"Hello, Arthur." An elderly looking doctor called from above him. Arthur vaguely recognized him, but not enough to remember from where. That was usually part of his job, to know everything he could about their contacts, but at that moment he couldn't have cared less. "I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me?" He didn't wait for an answer before trudging along as though he knew just how tired Arthur was. "What's your name?"

"Arthur," He responded, he saw Dom's nod and then grudgingly finished, "Bowen."

The doctor kept on with a few other questions and Arthur knew this was because that projection smashed him over the head with a stone from the ground. His memories of waking up were hazy, but he had them and even if the sensations weren't different he would have realized he wasn't in a dream. He remembered only snippets from waking up, but enough to slowly realize that, inexplicably, he was injured in the real world the same as he had been outside. Also, he had an awful memory of telling Eames about colors, but he was going to play that off like it never happened. Eames would likely take his lead. They might not get along much anymore, but Arthur knew Eames wouldn't make fun of anything that had happened in or out of this particular dream.

Arthur realized he'd been drifting, because it seemed that all of a sudden the doctor, looking vaguely satisfied, had stepped to the side with Dom, and Yusuf was the one sitting next to him.

"Arthur, I am so sorry." Yusuf said, actually wringing his hands.

Squinting at him, a little confused, Arthur couldn't bring himself to be much more eloquent than, "Huh?"

That seemed to upset Yusuf even more. "The drug, it was too strong. I wanted it to be complete much too quickly. We should have worked out way up to that strength, more trials. I simply wasn't thinking."

"S'okay, Yusuf." Arthur forgave easily. Yes, they were the best, but that didn't completely exclude mistakes made out of rushed excitement.

"When you're better," Yusuf said, gesturing vaguely at Arthur's body. Arthur glanced down at himself and saw bandages and bruises… a lot of bandages and bruises. "We'll talk about the dream and I'll tweak things. I'll test it myself."

Arthur was going to protest that, he didn't mind testing new techniques or drugs, and he certainly didn't want his role to change just because he'd been pummeled so hard in a dream that he'd been hurt outside of it, but his eyes were growing heavier and his head wasn't really willing to fight it. He fell asleep again.

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Later, though all he had wanted to do was sleep more, he woke up and had desperately needed the bathroom and a drink of water, in that exact order. Dom had been there, luckily, and this wasn't the first time something like that had been necessary. Arthur didn't even bother feeling embarrassed about Dom nearly carrying him to the bathroom.

With that trip of pain over, Dom lowered him back down to the couch. "All right now, Arthur?"

That question held a lot, and only the years working together let Arthur know it. "Yeah… It's not so bad."

"In your, ah, scale of injuries? Or compared to the dream?" Dom asked, getting right into the heart of the matter just way that Arthur had always appreciated.

"A little bit of both." Arthur answered, letting his head fall back against the arm of the couch.

Dom scoffed, "I think we both know this is almost as bad off as you've ever been."

Smiling lazily, Arthur shrugged (and pretty much regretted it). "Nah, remember that time in Sri Lanka? With Eames?"

Dom's answering laugh let Arthur know that he did remember. It had been years before, when Eames worked with them much more because he and Arthur had not yet fallen out. His mind ran through the details again as it had a thousand times before. The job had been a spectacular mess. It had ended with all three of them sporting gunshot wounds, Arthur worst of all.

"Okay, second worst time ever." Dom conceded. He stopped talking and waited for Arthur to look at him. When he did, Arthur could see how genuinely frightened Dom had been. All anyone else would have seen was an intense stare, but Arthur knew better. Things had finally recovered between them, the Inception job the lowest point in their communication but possibly the highest point in their loyalty to each other, and they were finally able to hold nothing back, as two partners in this particular line of work were supposed to function. "Tell me about the dream?"

"Yusuf was right," Arthur said, eyes trying to see the detail of the dream but completely unable. He remembered how he felt about it, but he couldn't muster up the intensity of any of the sensation, his body simply unable. "It was like feeling things more than I ever could. Colors, smells, textures… everything Dom. I don't know what you needed it for, but there's no way it could work. It couldn't mimic real life in any way possible. I changed things because I couldn't handle all of it and…" Arthur paused and sighed, "I panicked."

Dom took a moment to take that in. Arthur closed his eyes tiredly, feeling his body's aches all the worse. In the bathroom, he'd taken a quick second to look at his wounds under some of the bandages. They were bad, but not as bad as they'd been in the dream. Still, he had enough stitches, bruises and scrapes to keep him out of the game for a while.

"Get some more rest." Dom said at last. Arthur stared at him for a few seconds, "I'm going to talk to Yusuf about this, but I'll be back later, okay?"

Arthur sleepily nodded, not willing to fight with Dom about the job, and again fell asleep.

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When he woke up next it was because the pain was raging. He didn't see how he'd been able to walk before, even with Dom's help.

"Shit," Arthur moaned, trying hard not to move even though he kind of wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

"Such language, darling."

Eames was back, definitely. Arthur opened his eyes and found himself less than a foot from Eames' smiling, mildly concerned face. The Eames he had known wouldn't have bothered hiding that he was concerned, but a lot had gone down since then. Between their fight and then, even worse, all of the drama leading up to and exploding after Mal's death, Arthur should probably consider it pretty interesting that either he was being shown or seeing through to Eames' concern at all. As it was, he couldn't care less.

That probably showed on his face, because suddenly Ariadne was there, with a pill bottle… a beautiful, glorious prescription that was for pain, if there was a God.

"You're not supposed to get another dose for another fifteen minutes, but I think you can't wait." She said, glancing at Eames.

"Give it to him, love." Eames drawled, lifting a glass of water from the floor.

Ariadne brought two pills to Arthur's mouth. "You can take the antibiotics later." She explained as he swallowed the pills dry. Eames cocked an eyebrow and held the glass of water teasingly. Ariadne made an impatient noise and moved to take it, but Eames was quicker.

He held the water to Arthur's lips and didn't let go when his shaking hand tried to take it. "Have a sip, Arthur." He said with a grin.

"If I didn't know better," Arthur groused a little breathlessly, angry for pretty much no reason other than Eames was near, "I'd say you were enjoying this."

"Then I do hope you know better." Eames said shortly, standing up and walking away with the water.

Arthur watched him go without comment, but Ariadne didn't. "I don't know why you guys snipe at each other so much, you obviously don't hate each other." She said, giving him a look that said she thought they were idiots. "Is one of you going to have to get hurt even worse before you decide that you're friends?"

That was nothing Arthur was going to answer to, even if the pill weren't making him tired and loopy again. Really, it was getting old.

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"You're scrapping the job then, yeah?" Eames asked, a few yards away from where Ariadne was keeping an eye on Arthur.

Arthur had been drifting in and out of consciousness all day. Currently, he was awake and chatting quietly with Ariadne and Saito, the two people in the room that didn't feel awful for one reason or another. Arthur had been giving Dom and Yusuf strange looks every time he was awake, like he was going to give them a stern talking to if they didn't knock it off. Guilt, however, was kind of hard to just flip on and off like a switch. It probably helped that Arthur didn't blame either one of them for the intensity of the sedative, which was completely like Arthur.

It definitely helped that the doctor had quietly informed them that Arthur was going to be fine, if he took it easy until the stitches were out. Flesh wounds, he said. Almost fatal, Dom's conscience whispered. It would be easier and easier to believe what the doctor had said, the stronger that Arthur got.

Dom's eyes darted over to the object of all of their thoughts. "I wasn't ever completely sure of it and Arthur said it wouldn't work. Unless Yusuf can lower the dosage, but even then I don't think we'll go forward."

"Probably for the best." Eames agreed, pleased. Risk was all well and good, but this was nothing to play around with.

"Arthur said every sense was so intense in the dream that he panicked and started changing things to cope." Dom admitted to Eames.

Eames was shocked and didn't bother to hide it. "And they turned on him? Jesus, I can't imagine Arthur panicking that much."

"Which is exactly why I know the job won't work." Dom explained. "I take Arthur's word."

"We know that, Dom." Eames said, with a look.

They were both quiet for a second. Eames' eyes took in the wreck that their warehouse was in. Medical supplies strewn everywhere, intermixed with the occasional blood-soaked towel that they hadn't gotten around to disposing of yet and Yusuf's notes for the drug. "Going to tell us what all of this turned out to be for nothing for?"

Dom looked Eames in the eye. "Trust me, it wasn't worth it."

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This chapter was kind a hodge-podge wrap up, but I hope there was enough team!fluff to keep everyone interested. I had only ever intended it to be a slice of team life post-movie, so the problems within them aren't going to be resolved, just peaked at.

I hope you all enjoyed the story! I have to admit that I don't really have any other ideas for an Inception story, so if anyone has any inspiration advice, please do send it along.

As this is the last chapter, I do hope everyone (lurkers too!) will drop me a line and send in their thoughts!