A/N: I had a random burst of an idea for an Inception fic, so here it is. Let's see how long my attention span can last this time…reviews are always great motivation, though, hinthint! ;] This fic is going to be a little dark for awhile, but bear with me, it'll get better. However, I'll let you decide what's actually happening. My mouth is closed about the main events taking place, though I may choose to answer a few questions if I don't think they're giving too much away. :] Okay, here it goes!
By the way, this is T for some language, implied rape, and torture. If anyone complains, I'll bump it up to M, but it won't get any more graphic than this first chapter.
The pain was breathtaking.
That is, what Ariadne could feel of it; she had felt so much of it for so long that she could only dimly tell of the condition she was in. Something sharp seared under her skin, and something else devastatingly heavy slammed against the bones of her forearm, snapping it neatly in two. Yet, her throat was so swollen with screams that she could not make a sound; only a shrill, aching wheeze escaping her bruised lips.
The breathing above her was close; he was near, touching her bare skin. Weakly, she cracked an eye open. It was the only one capable of movement. The flesh around her other eye was far too puffed and purple; Ariadne didn't know if it would even work anymore, it had taken so much abuse.
There was one agony to which her senses were not dull. No matter how many times he had violated her, Ariadne still felt the sick terror light up her belly. It was the worst of all the torments she had endured at his hands, and she couldn't bear the thought of another such encounter.
"Please," she tried to plead, but it came out as a rusty whimper. Please. She felt liquid trickle down her face, but she had no way of knowing if it was blood or tears.
He just chuckled. The sound to her ears was almost inhuman. Through her blurred vision, Ariadne could just make out the icy white of his face. His hair, despite all the torture he had inflicted upon her so viciously, was still in perfect condition, slicked back so neatly that it made her ill to think that he could look so perfect and be such a monster at the same time.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," the man said silkily, running his fingers casually over the blood-slicked knife in his hand. A smile pursed his cold lips. Unwittingly, Ariadne's lone chocolate orb flicked to his mouth, and he laughed again, amused. Bending forward, he pressed his hard mouth harshly against hers, and she shuddered fully in pain and fear.
Coming closer, he moved past her face. Crept closer to her ear.
"Don't pretend this isn't what you've wanted," he whispered into the pale, delicate shell. "I've been through this entire pathetic thing you deign to claim as your mind. I know everything, Ariadne. Your wants, your desires. Your weaknesses."
He pulled away slowly, torturously, and stood, beginning to circle the girl in long, languid strides.
"I saw you in your own mind. Heh. You, Ariadne, so arrogant and conceited. You thought yourself the master architect, a flawless designer, the ultimatum in creation. You thought you were a god. Now you know just how wrong you were, my pitiful little dream-weaver. You made me sick. You're nothing. You're mine now, and you're going to be mine forever. There's no escape. I hope you know that."
A thought surfaced inside Ariadne's frayed conscious. Words rattled through her sternum, left her lips painfully, same as the spittle blood flecking out of her mouth. The man didn't catch everything, but the one word he understood was dreaming?
He laughed, full-throated. "Oh, Ariadne. Even if you were dreaming, what difference does it make? This is your reality now. Pain is pain; isn't that what Cobb taught you? A faceful of glass hurts like hell either way, doesn't it?"
Pulling back, he examined his bound captive, tied so stiffly and expertly to the chair. He smiled again and tenderly, affectionately, and he reached out to touched her face gently. He began long, slow strokes up and down on her mottled cheek.
"You want to know the good news, Ariadne? You think you know pain so far? I haven't even begun to show you the meaning."
Ariadne pulled back as sharply as she could away from his touch. Drawing strength from somewhere deep in her core, she spat out five breathy words.
"Just kill me, you bastard."
"Oh, no. I'd never do that, baby. Do you want to know why?"
Her eye shone with revulsion, already knowing the answer.
"It's because I love you, Ariadne."
Because she could only see out of one eye, Ariadne didn't see the blow coming from her right side. It slammed into her head; she exhaled into unconsciousness gratefully, cursing one name again and again in her head.
Arthur.
.
.
Three months earlier
.
The ringing phone was silenced as the petite brunette drew it up to her ear, punching a button with her thumb deftly.
"Yes?"
"It's me."
Ariadne's heart jumped gleefully, like a little schoolgirl's as she meets the gaze of the object of her affection. Swallowing quickly, she managed to disguise her childlike excitement. Barely.
It was him!
"Arthur. Is everything alright?"
"Do I need something to be wrong to call you, Ariadne?"
The young woman listened to his words, and her heart sunk a little. Of course, in the few months that she'd been apart from Arthur with literally no communication between them, her imagination had racked up thousands of conjurations of the supposed spark she'd thought she'd felt between herself and the point man during the inception job. Now, as she listened to his mild, precise tone, without a speck of inflection of sentiment or affection, she realized that the "spark" had all been on the part of said imagination. She should have known all along.
Ariadne squeezed her eyes shut.
"Uh, no, Arthur, not at all. What can I do for you?"
"I'm in Paris right now, and I'd like to discuss something fairly lucrative with you. I know you're on break right now, so would it be possible to meet with you tonight? Perhaps at that café that's around the corner from your house at seven?"
Ariadne felt a slight twinge of resentment pulse through her heart. The guy was such a cold, calculating jerk when he wanted to be. Of course he knew everything about her, from where she was currently residing to her class schedule; it was his job. And, she assumed, now he wanted her to be a part of his job, reprising her role as a bright young architect. She was nothing more to him than that.
When she'd come back from the inception job, Ariadne had had immense difficulty returning to her former life. When one had lived such a grand adventure, taking up the role of a student again, trapped in the conscious world forever was nothing short of a herculean task. However, she hadn't had much of a choice. It'd seemed the four men had disappeared off the face of the earth. Not a single one had contacted her, though Ariadne had prayed every day that they would. Now that Arthur had, she tasted of the bitter medicine of Be Careful What You Wish For. He was popping her happy daydream balloons with such crushing indifference that she could slap him.
"Yeah," Ariadne heard herself saying. "That's fine. See you at seven."
He hung up without even saying goodbye. Ariadne squeezed the phone tightly in her grasp and exhaled slowly. Despite the cold sort of rejection she'd just endured, Ariadne was still a silly female, and found herself wondering what on earth she was going to wear that night.
Hopefully she'd find something in her closet that screamed You Just Blew It Big Time, Asshole.
He was painfully punctual and just as painfully good-looking as Ariadne remembered. He was impeccably dressed as usual, his eyes friendly but clearly all about business rather than camaraderie. She tried to ignore the visions she'd entertained in the past few months about him sweeping her up in a crushing embrace and pressing his lips to hers. Her memory of who Arthur was in reality was clearly not as good as her ridiculous imagination.
"Hello," Arthur said, smiling at her with a quick nod.
"Hey," she said, struggling to return the smile with ease.
He gestured to a table, and they moved towards it. He pulled the chair out for her, and slid it in when her knees bent, his timing perfect. Ariadne bit her lip, trying not to be annoyed. He was such a damn gentleman in every way except what mattered.
Arthur sat across from her and ordered a cup of tea. Ariadne did the same, not taking her eyes off the man across the table. He met her gaze once the waitress had left and smiled again.
"So, down to business," he said, his voice quick and audible only to Ariadne. "I've found a job."
"I figured," Ariadne said nonchalantly.
"This isn't the usual job," Arthur demurred, eyes tightening at the corners with anticipation. "This one is big. It has to be done right; it's for very important people. People more important than anyone else I've ever worked with. They contacted me, told me everything. It's a big deal. Therefore, I need the best. I need you to be a part of it. You're the best architect I've ever met."
She swallowed. Once.
"Um. Who else is going to be a part of it?"
Arthur leaned back, seeming to have been assured that she was in. "Eames is the only one you'll know. I had to get a new extractor, because Dom is out. He just wants to be with his kids, and who could blame him? He's been to hell and back again for those children, and there's no point in putting his new happiness into such huge risk, especially when—"
"Wait a second." Ariadne leaned forward, brows knitting together. "Huge risk? What kind of risk? Like limbo risk?"
"No, no, we're not going that deep." Arthur actually looked slightly uncomfortable. He glanced at Ariadne's suddenly tight expression and sighed. "Look, I'm going to be upfront. The bigger the client, the bigger the risk is if we fail. But don't worry. I've assembled the right team. We aren't going to fail."
"Just how big is this client?" demanded Ariadne sharply. "Be upfront about that!"
Arthur glanced left, then right carefully before looking back at her. "I won't tell you all the details. It's safer that way. But I will tell you the general idea," he added before she could protest. She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.
"It's a government," he admitted. "Though the target is the one who's more dangerous. The government wants us to go in and find out where this guy's munitions are being shipped. He's an arms dealer."
Ariadne barked out a laugh. "An arms dealer? Are you kidding me?"
"Look, Ariadne, this is no joke."
"No kidding, Sherlock!"
"Ariadne."
The tone in his voice made her heart jump the same way it had when she'd picked up the phone earlier that day. Arthur reached out across the table and touched her hand so gently that she felt goosebumps chill along her bare arms.
"You trusted me when we did the inception job. I protected your unconscious body with my life. With everything I had. We worked together like clockwork then, because you trusted me. I need you to trust me now. I give you my word that you'll be safe; I'll protect you with everything I have just like I did then. I just really need you to be in for this job, Ariadne."
For a split second, Ariadne thought she saw the mask fall. Arthur's eyes that had been so cool and distant from the moment they'd been together again were as kind and gentle as the times he'd spent training her, watching over her, smiling with her. The Arthur she'd known and had fallen so hard for was back, instead of the shrewd, slicked-back stranger who'd breezed through the café door minutes ago. It was like a breath of warm wind, and she could feel her heart flutter.
She agreed to do the job. Because she knew. For all her arguing and protesting, she was in the minute he walked in the door. Arthur was her weakness.
It wasn't until hours later when she was back in her bed, half fallen into her usual, dream-deprived sleep, that Ariadne remembered that it was Arthur's job to know everything about people. Even their feelings and affections.
And especially their weaknesses.
A/N: I feel like Ariadne is a bit out of character, but it could just be my opinion. Besides, we didn't really get to see this side of her emotional spectrum in the film, so it's hard to say. At any rate, you should review and let me know :]