Violating Trust

Arthur was not sure when he had decided that getting drunk sounded like a good idea but here he was. The job was annoying and frustrating. The mark had every inch of his professional and personal life under lock and key so trying to get information on the the mark was much harder than it normally was. He was exhausting all of his options trying to find some way of getting information but nothing was working. That was when he decided that opening the bottle of scotch in his desk sounded like a good idea. The more he worked the more that edge needed to be dulled and before long the bottle was almost empty. Now he was drunk in their office, alone, and getting no work done. That just made him more frustrated because that had been good scotch and now he could hardly remember what it tasted like. Now he did not have any more scotch, he was no closer to finding any information, and Arthur could feel a headache starting to form.

The rest of the team was blowing off steam as well. The extractor was on a date with some woman he had picked up in a bar the previous evening, Arthur was not fond of the man so he really did not care either way, and Ariadne was eating dinner with an old classmate. They were in Brussels and apparently she had found someone to meet up with. Arthur was also trying not to think about that too much because he was sure the vein in his forehead was going to burst. It was not until Ariadne had mentioned that the classmate she was going out to dinner with was a male that he really realized how jealous that made him. Arthur did not consider himself a petty man by any stretch of the word but knowing that she was out with another man made his blood boil a little. He was sure that she was dancing around the same thing he was, that their lingering touches and the kiss they had shared during the inception job, that it was all leading somewhere.

The sound of the door to the warehouse opening made Arthur look up from his table. His breath hitched in his throat when he saw Ariadne walking in. She had a small purse thrown over her shoulder and her hair hanging loose around her shoulders. The dress she was wearing was loose and flowed around her petite body. The straps were thin and he could see her bare shoulders from where he was sitting. The layers he was wearing suddenly felt confining.

"You're still here?" she said as she walked toward his desk.

"Still trying to find some sort of lead," Arthur replied and he could hear the click of her heels on the hard floor.

"Hitting the bottle a little hard too, aren't we?" Ariadne said and she smiled when she looked over the bottle. "And from the sounds of it you've had most of it tonight, haven't you?"

"You could say that," he said and he could smell her perfume, she was so close.

"I'll make sure to bring extra painkillers tomorrow morning for you." Ariadne smiled and put the bottle down. "Have a good night, Arthur." She turned to leave and he really did not want her to go so soon. Arthur stood and took her by the wrist.

"You should stay," he said and she turned to look at him. He looked into her large brown eyes, he could feel the heat from her body, and it was too much. Arthur released her wrist, cupped Ariadne's face and pulled her into a kiss.

Ariadne jumped when Arthur kissed her but she was not entirely surprised. The moment she had walked through the door he had looked at her with all of the desire of a man seeing a woman for the first time. He tasted like scotch and coffee and she would have been lying to herself if she thought that she was not enjoying every second of this. That was why she opened her mouth to his tongue and held onto his jacket tightly. His hands moved from her face to her shoulders and Ariadne was suddenly pressed against him so hard that the air rushed from her lungs.

"Easy there, cowboy," Ariadne said against his mouth but Arthur just kissed her again, harder this time, to the point that she thought her lips were going to bruise. Using his impressive speed Arthur moved so she was up against his desk, the wood digging into her lower back. "Arthur, calm down," she said again but she could feel his fingers digging into her hips.

"God, I need you," Arthur said against her mouth and his words were slurred from the alcohol. He moved to her neck as his hand began to snake up her dress.

"Arthur, slow down," Ariadne said trying to move his hand out of her dress because this was not how she did things. She liked Arthur, she liked him a lot, but she was not the type of person who let things go beyond kissing without even a date. She knew that she deserved dinner, she deserved something more than being pushed against a desk in an abandoned warehouse. It was not until he shoved his hand back up her dress that Ariadne began to really worry. "Arthur, you need to stop," she said trying to move away from him. Arthur kept her in place, held her against the desk and when his fingers touched her underwear, she shivered. It was not in the good way though, it was a shiver because she did not want him there, she wanted him to stop. "Arthur, get off of me," Ariadne said trying to wiggle out of his grip but his hands only tightened against her hips, pushing her into the desk even harder, because he was not listening. She moved her hands to push him away but Arthur caught her wrists in one hand and held them off to the side.

His fingers ghosted between her legs and Ariadne tried to pull her legs together so maybe he would take the hint and move away. That just made him rougher and when he finally touched her there was nothing gentle about the action. His nails scratched her sensitive skin and she squirmed to try and get away. Arthur was so much stronger though and he managed to hold her still with just his body weight. His mouth was on her neck, her shoulders, and Ariadne just wanted him to stop. "Arthur, stop it, right now," she said and she managed to get a hand free just as his fingers slipped painfully into her. Ariadne pulled back and punched Arthur as hard as she could, feeling the knuckles of her drawing hand scream in protest. He stumbled back a few steps, dazed, before she hit him again.

Ariadne jumped to her feet, snatched her bag and ran out of the warehouse as fast as she could. The tears were falling before she had a chance to think straight and her entire body was shaking. When the cab driver asked if she was okay she politely said that she was fine. He did not seem to entirely believe her but drove her back to the hotel nevertheless. The second she was in the room she fell against the door and fell to the floor below. She had trusted him, she had trusted him completely and he had broken that trust. She felt dirty, she felt betrayed, she felt like the walls were caving in. Ariadne stripped out of her dress and stood under a hot shower for a long time. Every time she closed her eyes she could feel his hand between her legs, his body pressing against hers and it made her sick to her stomach.

Ariadne collapsed to the floor of the tub, drew her legs up to her chest and cried. She was not sure where she felt more betrayed, physically or emotionally.

Arthur lay on the floor of the warehouse staring at the ceiling. Ariadne was gone, she had ran out, and his jaw was aching. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his die. He held it up to the light and looked through the plastic. All of the small bubbles and imperfections were there just as they were supposed to be. He rolled it and it landed on the right number. This was reality, this was real and what had just happened was real. In that moment he wished that he could put a bullet in his head and not have it mean anything. He wanted to hide from the rest of the world because he had done the unforgivable to a person he cared about so much. Arthur was not sure why he had done it, he was not sure why he had lost control like that and even if there was a reason that was not an excuse. There were no excuses, nothing he could say to make it better and no taking it back.

He closed his eyes and tried to ease the pain in his head. Looking back he tried to figure out what line of logic had lead him to assault Ariadne like that but nothing came to mind. It was like someone else had taken control of his limbs and the thing that stood out in his mind was the look of betrayal in those brown eyes that he adored so much. Arthur had violated her body and betrayed her trust. There had never been a moment in his life where he wanted to die as much as he did right now. There was just nothing that he could do to fix this.

Arthur pushed himself to his feet and looked down at his die on the floor. He resented the little piece of plastic for telling him that he was in the real world. He reached down and picked up his totem, placing it back in his pocket. He packed up his desk and threw away the empty bottle of scotch. He then proceeded to put on his jacket, go out into the cool night and just started to walk. Arthur was never one to go anywhere without some sort of direction. He was a creature that liked to plan and liked to know what was happening where and when. Right now was different; now he was walking through the streets of Brussels with no direction at all.

It was a half hour into his walk to nowhere that Arthur started to walk a little faster. Then his brisk walk turned into a jog, his jog into a run and his run into a sprint. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought that if his lungs burst, his blood pumped battery acids, his muscles tore, then somehow the previous hour could be left behind somehow. He ran as fast as he could until he nearly collapsed on the ground. It hurt to breathe, it was going to hurt to move in the morning and he caught a glimpse of himself in the window of a building. Hair a mess, flash flushed, eyes wide, a stranger's face.

He walked for several hours longer before the sun was beginning to peak over the edge of the city turning the sky purple. Arthur finally arrived at his hotel, thankfully a different one than hers, and into his room. He walked into his room and fell onto the bed fully clothed and closed his eyes. The night was over but the day had just begun; the very thought made him ill.

Ariadne was up most of the night crying. Even hours later she could not get his hands off of her skin and she had never felt more disgusted than she did in that moment. Throwing on as many layers as she could Ariadne tried to make herself look presentable. They were in a contract and they could not back out of it; the job was in two days. Her eyes fell on the dress that lay in a mess on the floor. Her stomach turned just looking at it and she flexed her sore fingers. Nothing was broken, thankfully, but she was so grateful that the levels were already done. She stood and walked over to the fallen clothing and picked it up. It was an expensive dress, she had only had it for a month or so, but now it just looked wrong. There was no way of saving it from the memories that it harbored. There was nothing good about this dress.

She rolled up the Italian silk into a ball and threw it in the trash. One look at herself in the mirror and she knew that she looked like hell. Ariadne had hardly slept at all and every time she did somehow she would shift and dull pain would shoot through her legs. Every time she moved it was a constant reminder of what had happened and there was no escaping it. She checked her phone and there were no messages from anyone. She thought about calling someone, anyone, but the only people she really knew anymore were former team members. Cobb and Eames would shoot Arthur when they found out what he had done and the last thing she needed was more drama. Instead she swallowed every instinct to rant to someone and got the last of her things together. After removing her things from the clutch she dropped that too into the trash and left the hotel room.

It was late morning by the time she got in and the extractor was waiting for her. His name was Louis and he was far too high strung for her tastes. Ariadne noticed that the desk was cleared and perfect like nothing had happened; a vise clenched in her chest and she thought she tasted bile.

"You all right running the machine?" Louis asked and she nodded, flashing her best smile when the sound of the door opening made her heart pound. She turned around slowly and Arthur was walking in. If it was a passerby on the street they would not have noticed that his shirt was a little wrinkled or that his hair was out of place but she did. Ariadne clenched her jaw so tightly that she heard her teeth crack. "Let's go test out the level."

"Sounds good," Arthur said and they began to gather their things. Ariadne set up the machine and Louis inserted his line. She pressed the button and he went under but Arthur hesitated. He reached out to take the line from her hand but the moment his fingers brushed her she jerked back.

"Don't touch me," she warned in a low and dangerous voice. "You know, I'm a professional: I will be close to you for the job, the team and everything related to them, but besides that you don't fucking touch me. Never again." The words left her mouth before she could stop them and she meant every word. Arthur stared at her with his dead dark eyes and nodded.

"I understand," he replied. He put the line in his arm and went under in mere moments. Ariadne stood over him as he slept and was overcome with the desire to punch him again. She clenched her fists as tightly as she could and held back. Instead she pulled out a sketchbook and drew pictures with thick black lines until the timer went off. When his eyes opened Ariadne refused to look at him directly, she refused to acknowledge him more than she needed to and made no attempt to hide it.

The job went perfectly and Ariadne walked away several hundred-thousand euros richer. She could feel his eyes on her back as she left and she wished that this was going to be the last time she ever saw him but that was not the case. It just was not possible; she was the best and so was he. When people wanted a job done right they called in the best and that was why she knew that she was going to see him again and again, that unless either of them dropped out of the business they would always see each other and there was no avoiding it. Ariadne would not give into her feelings and Arthur probably did not know how to do anything else so the moment she walked away she knew she was going to see him sooner than later.

Over the next two years they worked together a dozen times or so. Each time she was completely professional with him. No one else would be any wiser if they saw them working together. When she talked to him she looked over his shoulder and never into his eyes. The first few times he tried to start small talk and she ignored him. After the first few tries Arthur gave up. Every time she saw him Ariadne had to hold back the instinct to run over and punch him over and over again, demanding to know how he could break her trust like that. Sometimes the urges were strong enough that she had to excuse herself into the restroom to vent it out in some fashion. It was consuming, this anger and hurt, and she could not move past it. It all came back every single time she saw him and she resented him just as much as she did the moment after it happened.

It was a little over two years later that she got called into a job in New York City. The extractor was a man she had worked with in the past and the job he was describing was not going to be easy. That was why Ariadne was not at all surprised that Arthur was called in on point. Once again they wanted the best so they hired the best. She walked into the warehouse and stopped short. Arthur was leaning over a desk staring at some papers. His sleeves were rolled halfway up his arms, he wore a sweater with a button up and tie underneath, his hair slicked back, looking like an older version of the man she had met all those years ago. He looked up when she entered.

"Hello, Ariadne," he said. It was a formality that he continued to do no matter how many times she ignored him. Now, for the first time in two years, she was able to look at him and she did not want to hurt him. For the first time in two years she could look at him without feeling repulsed or furious. Ariadne looked at him and she was not overcome with those feelings of hurt, anger, betrayal, that usually clouded her vision. She was seeing clearly again.

Arthur was not sure when it happened but he looked up and realized Ariadne was looking at him. Normally she looked through him, over him, to the side, anywhere but his face but right now she was holding his gaze without flinching. She was looking, really looking, at him for the first time since she had told him to never touch her again. In all of that time she had never spoken to him directly unless prompted to. She never carried on small talk and he had long since given up trying but greeting her was still something he had to do despite the fact that he knew that she would never respond. Now, however, she was looking him in the eyes and his chest felt like it was going to cave in.

"Hello, Arthur," she said and they were the most beautiful words he had heard in two years.

A/N:
Okay, so, this was probably one of the hardest and easiest fics for me to write. While most people going into this fic probably thought I would focus on the physical violation but I wanted to look more into the violation of trust. In 2008 pretty much this exact same thing happened to me with a person I considered a good friend and someone I trusted. While the physical part was very traumatizing it was actual the fact that it was done by someone I trusted that hurt more. I can see this Ariadne feeling the same way; she trusts Arthur with her life, more than likely, and this is the ultimate betrayal. So I'm not sure if this was 100% how the anon wanted this to go down but here we are. Thanks for reading.