Inception
Arthur/Ariadne/Eames/Mal
If there was a way to turn back the clock
Would she let him do it?
It flowed through her like an addiction. Though it was something that took far too long to recognize for what it was. She was the fresh blood until she was nothing but a dried stain on the floorboards. She had become the new Cobb. Going back and reliving the only moments she had that were safe for her. But they had stopped meaning as much. So she created new ones. Until she literally was living inside her head. The reality started to blur from the fiction but she maintained enough sense to remember the magic words
It was just a dream
How acceptable. How easy it was inside her own mind. Where she could obsess and pontificate to her heart's desire. The feeling of his lips on her shoulder blades. It was something that had never quite translated as well inside her head, but it would have to do.
He knew he shouldn't have done it right after it happened. He allowed himself to use her to feel things he'd long since forgotten to feel. Innocence, pleasure and air. Was there something so wrong about wanting to feel those things again? Yes. Because he stole them from her like they were his for the taking. They could have shared them together if only she'd help him feel one other thing that he hadn't been able to feel since a phone call in the middle of the night from Cobb. Desire. He lost it on the ledge of a hotel. Or perhaps in a spinning top. So he took, and left her until they both had nothing.
Eames caught her one night. Crying out in her sleep. Unusual for the dreamers to have a reaction like this and not wake up. So he woke her. Only to realize she was actually crying. He took her away after that. Wouldn't let her touch that world again. She didn't need to tell him why she was crying out. She'd been used up. The reason he knew this was that he was the only one who knew Arthur. Who knew Mal. He never said anything to anyone. Instead he stuck around just long enough to pick up the pieces and then flee again. This time he would take her with him.
She would wake up in his home in Bolivia. The Spanish speaking woman would help her out of bed and into her clothes which were freshly laundered. For a moment she was certain she'd gone just another level deeper but she reached for her totem and found it exact. She wandered downstairs to find Eames sitting at the breakfast table with a coffee and a foreign paper. He looked up when she entered and gestured for her to sit.
He took her away, just until she wanted to go back. He wasn't keeping her; this was just what he did. Fixing the shambles of Arthur and Cobb's affairs. He liked her and didn't want to see her suffer which she would only do if she continued to live her life under the dreamland's love.
"All he said was that 'she was lovely'."
"Because that's all he could say."
"I'm not suffering."
"Okay. Suit yourself."
"I'd like to go home."
"Alright, I'll have Estrella book you on the next flight out. Where is home then?"
She had hesitated a bit too long and he pushed the large bowl of fruit on the table towards her. She closed her eyes, touched the chess piece and then took the fruit.
She stayed there for a long time. Just inside the house or wandering the streets. Remembering things she'd forgotten. He would never accompany her and she rarely even saw him. She doubted he actually was in Bolivia most of the time. There was still an itch though, and as hard as she tried she couldn't seem to shake it. The need that she doubted would ever really fade. He came in one night and slowly walked over to the chair in which she was sitting. Overlooking the streets and people below. He hated to ask but he needed her. She was the best and he needed the very best. She agreed anticipating the rush she would regain from a world that was entirely her own.
Not nearly as complicated as inception but still none the less quite intricate. After three months of planning, he worked closely with her to make sure it didn't become too much. To pull her if she needed to be pulled.
He would allow her to come on the condition that she follow his rules this time. But she wasn't telling him the truth. That he had become a haunting in her mind. Taking and touching and leaving her cold and bare.
When the day came she felt the slow descent into her own creation. Something beautiful that would never last. Exactly the way she liked it. She did her job. Followed every procedure. Until the minute she was allowed to be alone. Walking into the deserted factory where she found the bed and industrial lighting just as she had left it, just as she had re-imagined it. She sat down on the edge of the bed. Taking in the smell of the sheets and the paint peeling from the walls. Then he walked in. Well suited, as always and silently removing his cufflinks as he always did. He walked over to her and took her hands. The way he had done the first time and brushed the hair away from her face.
"It is time you left me here."
"Not yet."
He seemed surprised for a second when she pulled him into her kiss but then it was gone and all that was left was a kiss that was warmer than she ever could have remembered. She felt herself exhale slowly with relief. He pulled away gently.
"You should go."
"This is all your fault."
"Yes." He looked down and fiddled with his sleeves "I should have known to stop it."
"I probably wouldn't have let you."
"Even so, you're not the first. Don't let me take you here - to this factory again."
"You don't. I always come here on my own. You just always seem to know how to find me here."
"For that I am sorry."
"Yeah...me too."
She didn't look at him or him her. A stalemate had been reached. But she didn't get up to leave. She put her hand on his and felt the warmth of his skin. It felt like it had before the dreams. In reality. Dreams were always colder.
"Let me say goodbye. Properly."
He looked up at her; she wasn't sad, just resolute. He gave a small nod.
"I both hoped you would and wouldn't ask me that."
The he leaned in and kissed her. Slowly running his hands over her back. They stripped each other of their clothing and fell into each other. His lips were again on her shoulders, her collarbone and it was better than she had ever dreamed before. His skin against hers was so terribly comforting. It wasn't the most passionate, or the most painful, it was just warm and lovely. Exactly how it never was.
Afterwards he climbed out of bed to dress. Pulling on his shirt something bothered her about the image but it didn't resonate until he moved to kiss her cheek goodbye. She grabbed his wrists and pushed up his sleeves. Searching for the small black mole on his upper arm that she had loved and never left out. It wasn't there and then suddenly, neither was Arthur. Instead Eames stood before her not meeting her eyes. Still wearing Arthur's clothes. She let go of his arm like it had scalded her.
"I'm sorry."
This time he met her eyes. She believed him.
"I didn't deserve this."
"No, you deserved none of this."
"This is why I'm going to give you a chance to run before I can run after you."
He quickly pulled the pillow from under her head and began to hold it over her face. She didn't flail and in moments she had gone.
She woke up in the massage clinic they were using as a set up. The masseuse looked at her oddly for a moment. She wasn't supposed to be awake so soon. She instructed the masseuse to proceed as planned. As if nothing had happened.
She walked out of the clinic and didn't stop. She boarded the first plane she could get. The weight of her decision hanging heavily in the air with her.
A month later he walked into his Bolivian home. He greeted Estrella and threw his belongings down on the sofa. He travelled light and had need for very few personal possessions. He wandered into the library where he found her sitting on the same chair she always sat on looking out onto the street. Just as it always was. He walked over to her slowly and she looked up from her book.
"You're here."
"Yes."
"I gave you the choice you know. To run."
"I chose here instead. I'm tired of being used up."
"I just wanted to give you closure." He sat on the edge of her chair.
"I got it."
He waited a long time before speaking his next words.
"Ariadne, are you in love with me?"
"Don't be so self-absorbed."
"So no?"
"Why are you in love with me?"
"I don't think so."
"Good."
"Good."
They didn't say anything else. But she climbed into his bed with him that night, not to love, just to dream.