Two Sides-verse. One-sided Arthur/Ariadne-Sarah, hinted Ariadne-Sarah/Jareth. Prequel to "Two Side, One Person." Sarah is Ariadne. Enjoy, my lovelies.
I do not own Inception or the Labyrinth.
You like to think that you know her; after all it's your job to know things, to know people, to know everything, to hold all the cards. You went through every database, legal and otherwise, until you had all the information you needed on her. Everything was in order, her life was simple, nothing suspicious except that her life was too… plain but you figured that not everyone had interesting lives and ignored the lack of anything in her life. Oh how that should have raised flags and set off warning bells with neon lights because honestly, in today's world, plain was a myth, a shadow, something that was hardly possible in dreams, and yet she managed.
But you ignore it all because she is exactly what the team needs, and of course that isn't suspicious because of course everyone fits perfectly into their forced role in life. Your subconscious tries to warn you, and you ignore all the signs like how she takes a few seconds longer to respond to her name than usual and you chalk it up to her dreamer persona. Oh Arthur, you foolish Point Man, you should have listened, yet you didn't. You were so damn sure that it was a blessing, a fated coincidence. Not a doubt was in your conscious mind that this could have been orchestrated, because wasn't that a silly idea?
The more you work with her, the more you want to know, the more you need to know. Her hunger for the pure creation that only she seems to be able to command completely, her fantastical ideas that seem impossible yet always work for only her, the gleam in her eyes that make her look like a tigress on the hunt all spark your curiosity like no one or thing has been known to do. It becomes an obsession, trying to decipher her methods and inspirations, her gleams and knowing looks that make her seem older that her mere 22 years. You want to know her, need to know her, and when she spares you a glance form her work, her creations, you feel as though she can see into your mind, into your very core, and then it's gone when she turns away with a smirk and you feel like she knows something, some things, that you never can will could would ever know and that irks you because you are the one who is supposed to know all the things and not the petite brunette who sketches two desks away from you.
You take to watching her day after day in hopes of gleaning some bit of information from her that will help you understand her but she is all scarves and gleams and smiles and pure creation all fashioned into some elaborate complexity that is so simple and challenging that your mind cannot comprehend her. She gives you nothing that could give you the upper hand in whatever game you are playing with her, because that's what it feels like, and you wonder why you think that you need the upper hand over such a slip of a girl because she is sweet and naïve and green and everything that someone like her should be. But there are days when you wonder because she has a predatory look in her eyes or a knowing look or a gaze that is so faraway that it makes you wonder if it's possible that she's dreaming and creating with open eyes or she's longingly staring at a mirror or a window as if she's waiting for something that isn't there to appear or she gets excited when she sees a white barn owl and only a white barn owl and none of it makes sense so you want to ask her but you don't know how to broach the topic so you leave it alone though it nags at you in the back of your mind.
When you find her testing a sedative for the Arabic chemist, your eyes gleam and you take the chance that you have been waiting for and join her in the dream that is nothing like you have ever seen. All around you is blackness with not a star in the sky until everything shifts around you and you find yourself in a tour unlike any you have seen with its sideways stairs and grey-red stone that shines like an emerald in the corner of your eye. A window pane shimmers in front of you, in the wall, yet outside of it and you step closer to look out only for it to shatter and twirl and dance until it forms a crystal ball that lands in your outstretched hand.
Some force compels you to look into the crystal and within is a labyrinth where a younger girl navigates impossibilities and complexities as all the while a thirteen-hour clock chimes in the background and you wonder how the Architect could dream something such as this. Closer you look to find that the girl is Ariadne, hardly older than she is now yet younger all the same, and you ignore in favor of watching the dream. Jealousy fills you as she dances with a wild-haired blond man, yet you shove deep into your subconscious though you wonder why you were jealous when it is a dream. For a moment you meet the blond man's mismatched eyes and you feel his gaze pierce you with a mocking smirk, like he can see you and is no mere projection but a true entity that only exists in Ariadne's dreams.
At some point, you know not when, the crystal leaves your hand and is turns to shite sands that dance and swirl before they melt into the tower walls that now turn into two doors and you pick one, for you cannot hear what they are saying, and you watch her dancing again, closer this time than in the crystal globe, and you watch her age in the man's arms. Her dress melts and takes the appearance of molten silver as it molds and redefines itself into a dress fit for a true queen and is no longer a teenager's ball gown. Her hair lengthens, curling in ringlets and you feel your breath hitch as she changes from a wisp of a girl into a fully blossomed woman.
You want to reach out and grab her, to steal her from the smirking man that seems to be able to see you when no one else can see you in this dream. All her projections ignore you, which is odd but you cannot bring yourself to care as all you can do is watch as he caresses the Architect that you have come to consider your own and you can do nothing for you find you are unable to move so you glower. His lips pull into a feral grin as he bends down whisper something in her ear that makes her laugh and she spins around him, changing his clothes until they are constantly shifting and rearranging to the point it makes you dizzy to look at and so you focus on their faces and their surroundings.
The way she whispers his name, Jareth, suddenly puts her in the role of enchantress and seductress, a puppeteer who controls everything with simply a look while looking so innocent that you can't help but think it a trick of the dream because your Ariadne is nothing like this creature before you. Everything falls away and blackness surrounds you and suddenly you are in the warehouse, a strange chuckle ringing in your ears and images of white sand and towers in your mind. She is still asleep on the other lawn chair and you restrain yourself from going back under with her because you feel as if it would be another invasion of privacy and guilt begins to gnaw at you already even though you have done the same to numerous others before this slip of an Architect waltzed in to your life with all her scarves and glances and gleams.
When you return to your desk where you sit with your back to her to resist the temptation, you never notice the smile that plays on her lips or the way that the needle was never connected to her arm in the first place. You never notice how your memories of the dream you intruded upon faded away like an old memory or a true dream, only leaving impressions and colors and mismatched eyes that bore into your soul as the mock and laugh and jeer you before they leave your mind days later. You don't remember how she was never called Ariadne in her dream but another name that you never heard in the dream though you saw the man speak it. You never notice how her eyes seemed to laugh more since you went under after her that day or how the colors of her eyes weren't quite the same because you think that they have always been like that always. Oh Point Man, you should have listened when your subconscious warned you of her and only now have you realized that you have fallen for her, the one you will not know that you can never have until you have fallen much too hard and much too late by too many years and too many dreams.