Paris was cold; bitten with the on slaughter of a frost bent monster sweeping over the city. Though, Ariadne trudged through over paved sidewalks and streets painfully aware of the unwanted and sudden change of climate. Her body was nearly frozen with ice and she felt the need to shield her small box of possessions from the wind's icy cold grip with merely her arms. Her scarf flew back over her shoulders and kept a desperate lock around her neck. Her scowl made the world colder.
She came to the warehouse and pulled open the rusted door with a familiar groan, habituatually pulling with the heel of her foot to close it. The stairs creaked and moaned under her as she took the steps two at a time up. Opening up another metal door at the top, she came to the heart of the supposedly abandon warehouse.
"You're late," a coworker named Arthur stated without looking up from his work.
Ariadne kept her expression composed as she walked further into the enormous room that was littering with sediment, plastic and trash left behind from previous owners. Out of courtesy, she paused at the man's desk. "Sorry. I had a term paper due-"
"You're here now. That's all that counts." Arthur looked up from the monitor and gave barely a hint of a smile, with eyes squinted from the skin lifted up underneath. "Yusuf is over there in the back with a sedative. It's your turn."
Ariadne scrunched her nose and looked over where Arthur was directing. She really didn't need to get knocked out. Not after sleeping in later then she should have been. "Alright. I'll see you in a few."
She met Yusuf where Arthur said he'd be, in the furthest part of the warehouse working with the PASIV. Every time Ariadne looked at the portable machine, she felt further from understanding how it worked. Of course, that wasn't her job. Her job was to build. A lot.
Yusuf saw her enter and smiled. "Ah! You've finally come. Are you ready?"
Ariadne nodded. "As I'll ever be."
A few minutes later, she woke again and felt like she couldn't breathe. She struggled to remember what she dreamed, but found she couldn't. What she did remember was splattered paint and floating dots. She must have dreamed. Yusuf had hooked her up to the PASIV.
When questioned, Yusuf explained that the sedative puts people under heavily for more vivid dreams and is meant also so that they will remember nothing when they wake.
"Well, it worked," Ariadne said.
Yusuf's eyes light up and he smiled. "Great! Now, go back to work."
She frowned at Yusuf's use of bluntness. She liked him, but didn't pin him as the friendly type sometimes. It didn't matter to her, though. Yusuf was a coworker.
She shrugged it off like it was no big deal and took her box of things up from besides the fraying beach chair she'd sat on. Her work station was close to where Arthur still sat. In the same position, she might add.
Ariadne approached her tables and sat in a rusted chair in front of it. Her desk was in a massive disarray, with wood shavings, sketches and blueprints scattered across. She made room by moving a piece of one of her model on the floor and moved her box of things in its place. Her eyes wandered over all the wonderful models she'd brought along. Suddenly giddy, she began to extract them.
While doing so, her hand fell upon the binding of a book. Ariadne's eyes widen as she remembered something important she'd been meaning to do and looked over her shoulder at the immobile Arthur. His eyes were scanning the screen with a strange intensity and his chest rose and fell with each steady breath. Ariadne took the book out of the box and starred at the cover. A grin rose on her face.
She got up and approached him.
"Arthur?"
The man in question hesitated (probably just finished the last few words of a sentence) and pulled his eyes away from the screen. He met her face with a blank-like curiosity. "Yes?"
All the sudden, she started feeling a little embarrassed, but tried her best to contain it. "I . . . Well, I was walking the other day on my way back to the university . . . I found this." She thrust the book in his chest.
Arthur took it, ignoring the abruptness of the way the thing was given, and looked at the book. His expression was unreadable.
"A gun book?" He starred at it. "Why of all things, a gun book?"
Ariadne was regretting ever buying it. "I don't know . . . I just thought of you."
He glanced at her and a bemused look crossed his face. "Um . . . Thank you?"
"You're welcome."
Ariadne hurried away back to her work and didn't look at him once the rest of the day.
After talking many times with Cobb, Yusuf and Eames (when he'd stopped by) and working overtime with her project, it'd become very late. She was turning the lights off and looked around. Everyone had left except for herself. And, someone else apparently.
She walked out of her station and peered to the open area where the group did most planning and discussing. Arthur was their pacing . . . and reading her book.
Ariadne couldn't help but smile.
Artwork that goes with this:
rebekahkroeplin. deviantart art/ Gazes-Arthur-And-Ariadne-371541852
(TAKE OUT THE SPACES)
If anyone is interested, I have an original copy of this, completely my own and longer even. It doesn't have anything to do with Inception. It is the same story, though, except different because it's original. And most likely better. Here's the link:
www. wattpad 21181467-the-artist-and-the-gun-book