Theseus's String
When he was a boy, he loved to read Greek mythology. It was something that he revisited later while studying philosophy in college, but after that he mostly forgot that part of his life.
In the myths, Ariadne had led Theseus out of the labyrinth with a ball of red string. Arthur supposed that it was only fitting that his Ariadne was the one to create the labyrinth.
She supposed that this was inevitable. The spark was always there, proven when she kissed him without hesitation when he told her to.
A chaste kiss, and yet somehow it was more meaningful than all of the passionate kisses she'd had in her life. The kisses he gave her now are much less chaste, but the meaning is still there nonetheless.
It just felt right.
Even more so because he walks in her dreams, shares a part of her life that she'd never be able to share with anyone else in her life.
It started out slow at first. For the first few months after the job, she tried to go back to her normal life, pretend that the job had never happened. She was a good actress and managed to fool everyone, even Miles, that she was fine, but the passion was gone. Building for the mortal world wasn't the same now that she'd had a taste of the dream one.
He showed up at her apartment four months after the job, wanting to see how she felt. He invited her out to dinner, a place that he liked to go to after the job. It was the most expensive restaurant she'd been to since starting college, and she had to remind herself that she wasn't a poor college student anymore. He tried to pay for her, she refused. He acquiesced, but bought her an ice cream afterwards.
The first (or second, depending on whether you counted the dream world) time he kissed her, her mouth was cold and sticky.
The problem was that technically, he wasn't supposed to know her, and she wasn't supposed to know him. In the real world, they'd never met. It was easier in his case since Paris wasn't his home, but they couldn't go to the places she frequented together. Back in high school all of this secrecy might have been exciting, but now she was mostly tired of it.
One day after class, Ariadne was sitting in her favorite café, drinking an espresso and doodling in her notebook. Most of her doodles were of impossible places, but then, she knew a place where the impossible was possible. The café was full, like it usually was after a class.
"Excuse me, can I sit here? Everywhere else is full," Arthur's voice shocked her, and she looked up. For a second she was confused, then she understood. This was Arthur's way of entering her other life.
"Of course," she said, giving him a big smile.
To an outsider, the two of them were chatting about trivial things. But Arthur and Ariadne knew that it meant something much deeper.
A/N- First Inception ficlet! I love this movie, seriously, and it has taken over my life. This is dedicated to chosenfire28 over on LiveJournal who told me to go for it when I said I was nervous about writing for this fandom.