"It looks like we have our ten hours." A smile from Cobb was rare, but there it was small and hopeful as relief spread through them all – finally, something was finally going their way without struggle and stress. "Ariadne," he turned back almost as an afterthought, but paused to catch her eyes, "terrific work by the way."
Arthur gave her a look and she did her best to shrug off the complement which made her heart flutter. As the novice on the team, they'd all pushed her into impossible limits. No detail left forgotten or up to chance. She'd never been in a snow fortress, for example - had never even seen one outside of the occasional action movie - and there she was building and creating one on top of Mother Nature's winter wonderland.
Each level took hours, days, weeks to build. Time between dream and reality blurred.
"Happy birthday," Arthur half-whispered to her as she continued to show him the hotel lobby designed to his specifications.
She blinked. "How did you-" She stopped mid-sentence as soon as she realized who he was and what his job description entailed. "Thanks."
"Any special plans?"
"No, not really. I'm not a big birthday person," she shrugged. "Eames wants me to add something to the snow fortress in case something goes wrong. It's going to take up most of the day once we're done here."
"My ears are burning," interrupted Eames. "Ariadne, terrific work by the way," he mimicked in a freakishly accurate imitation. "Good to know who's the favourite."
"Hey, be nice to her. It's her birthday."
"Is it now?" He gave her a once over. Ariadne fought to urge to squirm under his scrutiny. "Well then, we need to celebrate."
This wasn't her way of celebrating. Back in the considerably warmer workshop, goose bumps covered her arms as if she'd actually spent the afternoon trudging through ice and snow.
"I don't drink," she raised a hand in protest as Eames popped the cork off the bottle. Ariadne wasn't quite sure when he had had the opportunity to sneak out and procure said bottle, let alone where he'd whipped out two tall flutes from. But then again, these days she mostly accepted things the way they came and her approach to Eames was no different.
"Now there's a surprise," he drawled out tauntingly. "You live in Paris for Christ's sake. One would think that a respect for alcohol would have been on the entrance requirements."
"Well, I guess I got lucky then." Ariadne turned to clean up a table. "Thank you for the gesture, Eames. It was thoughtful."
Not one used to being brushed off, Eames forged onwards. "One glass won't do you any harm. Youth should be spent experimenting... you won't know what you like unless you –" he leaned next to her with the flutes of expensive champagne in his outstretched hand. "Try."
"If you think I'm that easily peer pressured-" Ariadne scoffed.
"Me or the champagne, darling."
For a moment, Ariadne wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. He didn't repeat himself, instead choosing to let the silence drag on and on. She couldn't stop the flush from blossoming on neck. "You don't know the meaning of 'no', do you?"
He shrugged.
"One glass," she warned. He gave her a toast.
"What's going on here?" Arthur asked as he entered the room littered with various models of the levels.
"Nothing," Eames replied, his eyes on Ariadne as she finished gulping down the champagne.
"Eames corrupting an innocent? He's right. That's nothing new," she choked out once she finished, the bubbles leaving a tingling trail in their wake. "There! Are you happy?"
"No. Disappointed, really," he murmured.
"Am I missing something?" Arthur mused aloud.
"The lesser of two evils," she tipped the empty glass at him, and then glared at Eames who grinned.
When they finally left the workshop, Ariadne realized that she'd left her red coat behind when a cool breeze seeped across her stomach and under her shirt.
"Are you sure you don't want us to wait for you?" Arthur asked.
Ariadne felt the dulling effects of the alcohol nagging in the back of her head. She took one look at Eames and the bottle, half-drunk, he carried in hand. "No, I'll be fine. See you tomorrow."
She made her way back inside and grabbed her coat off of a chair nearby her work table and then realized that the light in Cobb's room was still on. Again. Propelled by the slight buzz, quickly Ariadne found herself in front of his sleeping form.
He was alone this time. No sign of Yusuf.
Cobb spent most of his days tense and on edge despite his attempts to cover it with cool confidence. Even in his sleep, Ariadne could make out the furrow in his brow. Instead of ruining his attractive face, it seemed to fit him - or rather it fit how she'd come to know him.
The sound of her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she took a seat beside him and pulled out one of the IV cables from the retractable spool.
Every person on the team seemed to have an aura of mystery, but Cobb's was the one she found herself being drawn to time and time again. The desperation behind his eyes spoke of a man haunted. Fischer was more than a job; this was his life at play. A man with so much to lose had much to risk. Her curiosity couldn't be reigned in any longer. What else was he keeping from the group? What were these "experiments" he was conducting night after night? Why she cared about him in the first place was one question she refused to acknowledge at the moment.
Ariadne barely felt the sting of the needle as her eyes flickered once more to his handsome face.
Before she knew it, she was falling.