The Color Red
It's not until she's steps into the empty warehouse that she realizes what she's about to do.
It's almost completely dark except for the light of the street lamps from outside casting an inconsistent orange glow over the old furniture.
The machine is sitting on the table, left there by one of the team members till morning. She doesn't stop to think what this means before she's moving forward, drawn like a moth to the sun. She stares at the machine unwaveringly, and without warning her foot snags on something. A sharp pain shoots up her big toe, and when she looks down she sees a jagged rock, half hidden by shadow, lying in the middle of the concrete floor. Why it's there, she has no idea.
She stumbles forward, off balance, and can feel the blood spreading over and in between her first two toes. Luckily the toenail was saved, only the skin was torn.
"Shit." She snarls as the blood soaks her sandal.
Her toenails are painted a luscious red. Whenever she paints her fingernails, she can never decide on one one color, so they all end up as many different colors as she can scrounge up in her pathetic nail polish collection. She barely ever feels the need to paint her nails, but occasionally she finds herself wishing that small splash of color in her life. She had painted the ring finger of her left hand red, and liked the richness of it, so decided to apply to her toes. She could just barely distinguish the color now, the blood was only a slighter darker shade.
She limps over to the old sink in the corner. She has no idea if the water's clean or not, but all she really wants to do is wipe some of the blood off for now. The sound of water hitting porcelain drowns out all other sound except her own thoughts.
In retrospect, she thinks, that's probably how he snuck up on her.
She noticeably jumps when his hand touches her shoulder. She wonders if he can hear the uneven beating of her heart.
"What are you doing here, Ariadne?" Cobb asks gently. She suspects he already knows the answer.
"I just...um, wanted to work on something. I really... ugh, screw it. I needed to dream. Felt like I'd lose my mind if I didn't, right now." She waits for him to say something. All he does is reach out and turn off the water. "What are you doing here?" She asks, pulling her foot out of the sink, but keeping her toes elevated off the floor.
"I was just about to leave." He said quickly. "I was actually working on the job."
"Oh, really." Ariadne said, with more than a hint of consternation.
"Ariadne..." He leads over to one of the plastic chairs and sits down opposite her. He motions silently for her to put her leg up on his thigh so he can reach her toes. There's box of tissues on the table next to the machine, and he starts using on to dab at the blood, carefully not to press too hard. "You can't succumb to that kind of temptation. It does bad things to your mind, reality will seem impossible to live in. Sometimes it seems like that without dreaming, but normal people, they solve their problems and move on, instead of always retreating to the world they create. Anyone who's involved with shared dreaming must remember that, if they seek any kind of solace in life." He took a final tissue and wrapped it carefully around her hurt toe, making what looked like a clean white turban around the area of the cut. "There you go, that should hold you till you get home." He patted her ankle once, and she put her foot back on the ground.
"Thank you, Cobb." She said softly, marveling at the tenderness he'd put into her bandage.
"It's nothing." He sighed. "I used to do it for Phillipa, and even Mal, all the time." With that, he picked up his machine and headed for the door. Before he left, though, he turned, hand on the doorknob.
"And, Ariadne?"
"Yes?"
"I know I can't tell you what to do, but for the sake of those who care about you, take care yourself. Be strong. Neither reality or fantasy is an easy road to travel, especially if you have a foot in both."
And then he was gone.
And Ariadne smiled, because she knew she could control her life now, no matter where it may lead her.
Author's Note: Ok, so kind of a weird story. But it was inspired by true events in my rather strange life. I was going for a walk around the block when I tripped over something (I'm still not sure what it was, but I guessed it was some sort of mean rock, but I did say something very similar to Ariadne's exclamation). My toe ended up bleeding way more than I expected and I happened to have red nail polish on. So I started to describe the seen in my head and thought 'Damn, I should write this down!'. So I started thinking about what to apply it to and since I'd been writing Inception fics lately, these characters came to mind. Unfortunately for me, there was no cute guy and to bandage my toe. But a girl can fantasize. Please Review!