I just watched Inception and had worked myself into a tizzy by turning into an authentic fangirl. Eventually, I managed to sit and type this drabble out or else I may have, "legit", burst by spontaneous combustion.

Disclaimer: I wish, mis amigos. I wish.

Turning Tables

By

…

Arthur was precise.

He could, should, would know the exact when, where, and who. When needed, he also went out of his way to obtain the why and how.

Every stage, every step, every breathe must be planned, measured, and polished for the execution. There were to be no loose ends. He was the kind of man who couldn't afford to make "if's" because the difference of an "if" and a "definite" could be the deciding factor between success and failure.

Arthur did not like failures. Neither did his coworkers. Not to mention his superiors.

So Arthur had to be precise. And he was good at it.

…

Ariadne was creative.

She would take in bits of reality as well as subconscious matter and transform them into a setting. When it doesn't come up to par, she improvised.

She poked, prodded, and pushed limits until they stretched as far as possible and as wide as possible and then some because it was her job to create a universe with more than one or two solutions. Twisting and turning the spectrum was her idea of having a good time and a spherical three-by-four Rubric's Cube was a hilarious joke.

Ariadne liked puzzles. So did her boss. It kept them in the upper hand and the opposition guessing.

So Ariadne continued with the creativity. And she had fun.

…

It was a jostle of raw inspiration, a speckle of paint across the ordinarily monotone inked screenplay. He never planned it nor did he think about it nor did he even entertain the idea before.

They were just casually perched on a marble ledge when she asked him yet another question in a voice trying to stay calm but succeeding only marginally.

And he answered the question correctly, like usual, and then told her to kiss him. She did.

"It was worth a shot."

And then she was confused.

And he felt smug.

And she glared.

…

The actual kiss itself was nothing.

Well, it was sweet and nice and entirely cliché. She had had better (one) but also worse (three). She was kissed a total of four times in the past by a man. It wasn't a new sensation but could still be considered rare.

But when put into context with what was happening around them at the same time, with Fischer and Cobb and the looming threat of Limbo, then yes, the kiss could be considered nothing.

That didn't mean she could say it didn't matter.

Or that she forgot about it.

Or that she never wondered.

…

Sometimes precision doesn't make the cut and the surprise-er needs to be the surprise-ee.

Because having the tables turned is an experience within itself.

Author's Note: To be perfectly honest, I really wanted to make Arthur and Ariadne interact more. I wanted to have them fly at each other, mashing lips and tongue and teeth and any other sex mouth part I could think of.

Yeah. A lot more interaction.

However, I somehow got a hold onto reality through the hazy fog of Fangirl-dom and realized that neither would really go for that.

Sigh.