Author's Note: I don't even know. I really kind of like this. However, as usual, I don't know about my ending. Tell me what you think!
He's everything you want, he's everything you need, he's everything inside of you that you wish you could be. He says all the right things at exactly the right time, but he means nothing to you and you don't know why.
After the Fischer job, Ariadne and Arthur fall into some sort of routine. She doesn't know exactly how it happens, but it does and she's grateful to him. They eat, fuck and sleep, waiting for another job. It's comfortable.
She admires Arthur, truly. He's efficient, he's calculated, he seemingly knows everything. These are things, as an architect, that are important to her. These are traits that her career and her life are based around. But there's nothing exciting in him. He bores her.
When they finally get a job, she's relieved. Eames and Yusuf are back with them, a needed distraction from her life with Arthur. It is then that she realizes what she's missing out on. She realizes the void in herself and in her life with Arthur. She realizes how badly she wants to fill it.
Over time, she finds herself watching Eames. She's trying to figure him out and she can't. She likes that. She starts imagining him while Arthur's cock is buried deep inside her in the hotel room they share. She imagines that it's Eames with his hand on her breasts, his mouth on her neck. She imagines that he's rough and dangerous. She comes to images of Eames, with Arthur's name on her lips.
She realizes that he has to notice. Eames has to know. She's seen his eyes drift to her while they work, then quickly dart to Arthur, then back to her. She knows that he's wrestling with himself, something that surprises her about him. Being a thief, she didn't expect that from him. It's just one more thing about him that turns her on, in the end.
She's never thought of herself as the cheating type, never in a million years did she think she'd be in this position. But when Eames finally makes his move, when he pushes her up against the worktable, whispering what a naughty girl she is in that irresistible accent of his, she tells herself it was inevitable. She comforts herself with the knowledge that Arthur will never know.
He promises that he can give her all the things that she's missing with Arthur. Danger, freedom, excitement. It's these promises that have her meeting him in dark bars and sketchy hotels, while Arthur sits up in their bed, alone.
In the end, it's not excitement she gets. It's nightmares and guilt.