Title: Avestan
Author: Mina Robins
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Rating: R for a bit of gore.
An idea is like a virus. A dream is like an addiction.
To lose all that was of value only striving for the high.
A high that drains your very sanity and mind.
…
She couldn't do it.
She would not let go.
Infinite power and whatever she wanted was her.
Hers.
…
"It's time to go home, Ariadne." His tone strives for cheerfulness but she could feel his hesitation, his dog tiredness.
His face is so handsome, so perfect. Hair comb back. The leather shoes shined from polish. His suit immaculate even in his haste to find her.
"You know I've always wondered how going into the dream world works." This was her home now.
"Ariadne, I can get Miles to go into the specifics of the machinery if you like." Arthur is going for cheerful again but his voice is tainted with apprehension.
But Ariadne isn't interested. She has heard him tried to delude her of her power before. Why would she fall for it now?
She doesn't like being so near Cobb. The salt from the sea makes her stomach churn.
….
In an instant they are in a hospital.
"I spent numerous hours here in my youth." Her face looks dreamy, like staying in the clinical surroundings were enjoyable.
Arthur had never liked hospitals before and certainly not now. The lights flickered eerily.
"You know before I actually set off on studying I was," The petite girl grinned and lowered her voice, beckoning the cautious man closer. "My mother was the owner of a small club."
Arthur nodded, waiting for the young woman to continue.
Ariadne looks pleased and draws near until she's a hair's breathe away from the shell of his ear. "Mommy had a lot of drugs and they weren't all hidden very well."
If Arthur was surprised, he wasn't showing it.
She drew her eyebrows together in consternation. As if it offended her when he shown little to no concern to her admission of her more than liberal use of medicinal majuana and her occasion indulgence of afternoon shroom tea. Ariadne marched foward, through the endless halls. Ignoring Arthur and his attempt to start conversation till they approached a spiral of stairs.
"It is time to wake up Ariadne." Arthur has a hand on her wrist but she only smiles and moves out of his grasp when the ground shakes.
"Maybe." She whispers the next words in precise, a painfully slow and precise tone. As if she was explaining something to a particularly dim witted student. "Catch. Me. If. You. Can."
Arthur in all his mannerisms let out a growl as the stair case was clearly a paradox and the girl had escaped to the upper floors. "You can't stay here forever, it's not healthy!"
The Point Man quieted his complaint and opt to run back down the stairs to the last floor. Pushing pass empty gurneys and decomposing meals. The desolated halls were filled with needles and ridiculously fine detailed walls. Down to the very crack in the elevator button he jammed his finger into.
The elevator moved sideways instead of up or down. The rapid motions slamming him into the metal railing. When he shook his head of the cob webs he noticed a yellow sticky note placed in front of the top floor's neon button. Rubbing his forehead he felt the slight drip of sticky red liquid. He sighed and picked up the note.
In Ariadne's rather adorable lettering. 'You won't like what you find up here."
He clicked the button anyway.
…..
The hospital hall way was short and at the end of the tunnel held but one door. Pain filled moaning and gasping could be heard within its thin walls.
"Ariadne, you know I'm only trying to help you."
That must have bugged her because the walls creaked with exertion as they began to close in on hm. Arthur ran for his life to the dirty door and ram through the passage just the walls clenched close behind him.
"Bloody…"
The wall was filled, from the drenched floor to the crumbly celling with bodies. Cobb, Yusuf, Eames (curiously each of the dead Forgers had been dressed in Hawaiian attire, there was humour in madness, he did say he liked the beach). Some look starved. All are militated in some form. Their faces were so hollow and joyless. It frightened him.
However, Mal took up most of the room
Her eyes at times gouged out. Her face always bruised and blacken. Arms littered the ground. Mal, oh sweet Jesus. She was literally on every part of the dungeon of a room. Stomach, lung some part of the women was torn from her body and left to hang in the room. Her intestines apparently favoured as banners. The smell was pungent, sickening and it makes him want to throw up. But he is a professional, the best. The thought reassures him for a moment.
Standing up he set his eyes on the heavy double doors at the end of the hall.
…..
He's already there. The sickening sequench his shoes were making from the carpet and blood were gone.
"Sorry about just," the brunette waved her hand vaguely momentarily she was lost for words. "You were taking too long."
Ariadne is sitting peacefully by a canopy bed. The surroundings were what could be called homey. The walls were decorated by family portraits and a mahogany floor was accompanied by a Persian carpet. A hint of mint and jasmine fill the fresh air. He stands next to the Architect and looks at a haggard slumbering woman.
"Mommy, this is Arthur, I just made him, and maybe he'll last longer this time." Her voice sounds so innocent. So charming and trusting.
"I'm real, Ariadne."
"Nothing is real, nothing ever was."
This isn't right. Architects are not able to conjure up people. Nonetheless, they can change the face of things… the thought hits him like a punch. All those dead projections out there are Ariadne's own subconscious. The girl was tearing herself up for…for some twisted satisfaction or for... She was punishing herself.
"Mommy, are you sleeping?" Ariadne places her hand on the still woman's face. "Mommy, did you overdose again?"
The young woman frowns, her elegant features crumpling together. "WHY?"
The floor under the bed disappears. No sound, no dust, no nothing. The bed is gone, there isn't any sign it ever being the main piece of furniture in the room.
Two horse sized hunting hounds are patiently sitting on top of the gaping hole. Their grey tan skin and sharp yellow eyes focused on the door situated behind him. Arthur takes a moment to glance where the bed once stood to see his face reflecting up at him. Mirrors. The girl was still in love with them.
"They get a little stiff and muggy, and I don't want to just drop them." Ariadne looks up at Arthur expectantly. "Fine I'll do it myself."
The doors to the hospital are open again and the dogs move swiftly into the room, devouring the rotting carcasses. Arthur puts his hand over his mouth, swallowing the bile that had been thrown up from his protesting stomach. He can hear the mutts crunching on the bone of the dead and dying.
"Ariadne, what are you doing?" Arthur tightens his grip until his knuckles crack. "Look at what you've become!"
"You know my mother has an addictive personality, no, not as in charming but as in." The girl bites her lip. "She gets addicted to things easily, she was a druggy. I get addicted to things easily."
"Jesus, Ariadne." Arthur didn't understand it himself. Why did he not heed his team mates' repetitive warnings? He couldn't save her. He wondered if he could save himself. "I only want…"
"What do you want?" Her tone is haughty. They were back in the hotel created once in Fischer's mind.
Ariadne has a smug smile on her lips. "Perhaps a kiss?"
Her voice coy and dipped in molasses. He shifts awkwardly in the dull metaled coloured lunge chair but it is too minute for his companion to notice. The hotel is unnaturally empty. Before she manages to reach up and peck his lips he's standing up.
"You're making a scene." She was clearly irritated.
The hotel was practically bustling again. Projections clad in stiff professional suits and ties moved about them. A handful began glimpsing at the pair.
"."
"It didn't work then, why would it work here?" Arthur blinks, Ariadne even has her hair up in the same tight bun.
Ariadne smiles, it's sickeningly cute. "Because in here, everything is mine."
Her lips are on his. The pulse, the wanting, the softness draws him near. "Because here, you're mine."
And she was right.
He was hers.
…
A/N: I'm rather disappointed at where this story went. It started as a challenge and then I fudged it up. I took too many spins on the story and then it got out of hand. There are moments I like but they are rare and few. I don't know why I'm putting it up. I suppose it's the amount of time that went into that it makes me want it to work.