Title: Burning at these Mysteries
Chapter: Two
Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or these characters.
Rating: T
Ship(s): Ariadne/Arthur
Summary: Post-movie. The aftermath of the situation isn't something she'll allude easily to. And really, diving into his proposal, what exactly made her think this would be a good idea?
–
Heaving a loud sigh, Ariadne closes the car door and sinks back against it.
From the outside, looking in, the warehouse almost seems to be radiating a repressive glow. And that void inside of her, the one that has been apparent ever since completing the Fischer job, only irritates her chest further as she slowly advances towards the heavy metal doors.
Arthur is standing so close to her now that he should be able to sense her anxiousness.
At once, Ariadne can almost feel the heat emitting from his body from underneath his suit. She can almost feel his breath as it stirs the few strands of hair that frame her face. His eyes are like hardened steel, expressing no emotion as they fixate her. Arthur smells like expensive cologne, soap, and all around male.
"Arthur?" she questions, wrapping her arms securely around herself to keep steady.
The street lights flicker obscurely as they approach the building. Their eerie glow illuminates his face in a way that makes Ariadne suddenly ponder his motives even when she doesn't understand her own.
Arthur silently inserts a key into the door, waiting for her to continue.
"Isn't this against the rules?"
"I think we've broken a lot of rules over the past few months," says Arthur, trying to give her what she recognizes as his lazy smirk, "which exact rule are you referring to?"
"I just… didn't know we could do this sort of thing. I didn't know we could keep someone who's in such a deep state of sub-consciousness alive for so long," mutters Ariadne.
Arthur's smirk fades instantly.
"You thought I would just leave him at the airport? Jesus Christ, Ariadne," he replies, "I guess I always knew that Eames and Yusuf wouldn't want to do or say anything about it, but I thought you'd be different."
"Because you blame me and think this is my chance for atonement."
He pauses and turns to push the door open by exerting force with his shoulder.
"No, I mean that you'd want to do something about it since you're the only one that knows what happened. You aren't getting any special treatment, Ariadne. These days I pretty much hate everyone the same."
Ariadne laughs slightly at his last words as the cool autumn air envelops them. A sense of relief washes over her momentarily.
"I guess we all have our own way of dealing with our demons," she says, her hand absentmindedly reaches into her pocket for a smoke.
–
Ariadne aimlessly pushes the cigarette into her lips without even trying to hide it, as Arthur walks forward into the warehouse.
She's still standing outside, nodding subtly to no one in particular, as she wordlessly encourages herself to follow. Damn it, that's why she is here. That's her motive after all.
She trembles like a leaf as she squeezes into the opening between the two metal doors.
Immediately the immense ceiling lights turn on with a thundering click, leaving Ariadne with a fleeting moment of blindness as she shields her eyes from the bright illumination.
When Ariadne lowers her hands and adjusts her eyes to her surroundings, she stiffens instantaneously.
Across the warehouse, nearly a dozen yards away, is Cobb lying motionless on one of those lawn chairs she recognizes from Paris.
You share your dreams with me.
A surge of neglect and shame shoots through her, filling her with a reprehensible sensation that drains the small feeling of security she had felt before she had stepped inside.
Ariadne lets out a choked sob, causing the unlit cigarette to fall directly to the ground.
The silence seems to stretch on for hours until Arthur finally breaks it.
"Hey, are you alright?" he asks, cautiously nearing her with his smoldering face full of concern.
Ariadne shoves her hands into her jacket, purposely reaching past the box of cigarettes until her fingers wrap protectively around her golden chess piece.
"Yes."
–
Arthur brings her a glass of white wine, which is probably okay, because Ariadne likes the way it tastes sweet and bitter all at once.
"If you're trying to get me addicted to something other than cigarettes, this was a good start," she muses dryly, clutching the glass by its narrow stem so tightly that it reminds her of Mal's attempt to strike her in the basement of Cobb's dream.
Ariadne blinks rapidly and shakes the memory away.
Arthur smiles at her humorlessly. The corner of his mouth twitches as he tries to ease into the conversation. "I'm not, but I'm glad you like to think the worst of me."
"Why wouldn't I?" she asks, looking inquisitively at Arthur like she's looking at him for the first time.
He stares at her for a long moment and Ariadne is no longer really considering her question because she's too caught in Arthur's starving brown eyes.
And then her thoughts shift to the other, more prominent reason she's here.
Cobb.
Ariadne leans back in her seat and evades from letting her gaze fall on Cobb, who is currently situated in front of her.
His durable jaw is now covered with rough stubble and his dark suit is crinkled and dull. It almost seems too large on his sullen frame.
But the most interesting thing about Cobb's condition is his familiar visage. The sharp angles and wide cheeks are all still there, like he's getting everything he needs to fill up that face of his.
Perhaps if she concentrates hard enough, she might be able to see his eyes moving rhythmically underneath his eyelids. It's almost as though he's at a state of serenity, like he's dreaming.
Or it could be Ariadne's imagination getting the best of her, only letting her see what she wants to see: a satisfied Cobb exactly where he wants to be.
Her stomach twists and churns as she remembers the violent wind hammering her face as buildings in Cobb's limbo had toppled over. She remembers the ground shattering beneath her feet as she had pushed Fischer off the balcony, improvising.
"What happened down there? What happened while you and Cobb went to get Fischer?" he asks after a few minutes of sipping his wine.
Ariadne lowers her glass from her lips.
"You were always suspicious of Mal, weren't you? The way she was always projected into your assignments through Cobb? You knew he couldn't let her go, right?" she asks, biting back the bile that is rising up in her throat.
"Yes, but –" Arthur makes a movie to answer, but she doesn't let him finish.
"He did. Cobb let go of her down there, at least, that's what it appeared to look like," says Ariadne, hunching forward as she runs her fingers through her long hair, "I told him we had to go or otherwise he'd miss the kick and get stuck. But he said he had to get Saito… he said he'd improvise."
Whatever it is that has been making her feel so sick inside breaks free and causes Aridane to take a few shaky breathes as her eyelids fall close against he tears now forming in her eyes.
She's sitting with her arms wrapped around her stomach, bottom lip between her teeth and uncertainty written in every feature of her face. From the corner of her vision Ariadne can make out Arthur through her tears, which only causes heat to rise up her neck in embarrassment.
Because Christ, Arthur already has his own problems to deal with, and now he has her crying inside the warehouse where he's keeping his sleep-induced brother locked up from the rest of the world.
Except it's not like that.
Cautiously, stemming from everything inside of Ariadne screaming for him not to get any closer, she allows for Arthur to slide over beside her in the lawn chair, carefully place his hand on her arm and then her back, and wait as her sobs lessen to hiccups and then disappear all together.
Ariadne pulls back and wipes her face as she slowly stands and rubs her palms against her jeans conclusively.
"What happened with Yusuf and Eames at the airport?" she asks, the lightheadedness weakens as she begins to pace in front of Arthur, restoring any sense of dignity she can find amidst herself.
"Well," begins Arthur, gazing down at his hands right after he has touched her, "after getting Cobb through security we didn't talk. I guess it was the first sign of us coming apart. Once the job was done, there was nothing left for us to build on together as a team."
"So now you're mad that they've abandoned you?"
"No," he says as his eyes swim underneath the bright warehouse lights, "I'm not mad at them for leaving."
"Then what?"
"I'm mad at them for moving on without me."
There is a long, swollen gap of silence as Ariadne begins to realize that the tension between her and Arthur has never been personal. She is the only outlet he has at his reach; the only connection left willing to be near Cobb.
It shouldn't surprise Ariadne that Arthur just wants to understand.
"Arthur, can you take me home?" she requests softly.
"Yeah," he replies, brushing the dust off his dress pants as he gets up from his seat.
–
When Arthur suggests that he walk her up to her apartment, Ariadne doesn't have the words in her to protest or reject his offer.
It's something she has learned to comprehend recently. It's not that she can't say no to him, in fact, the more she had chewed over the thought in her head during the car ride over when she had pictured this precise scenario, Ariadne realizes that she doesn't really want to say no to Arthur.
Not after that experience in the warehouse when she had agreed to see Cobb.
Arthur doesn't make remarks about her pitiable Brooklyn building or the circumstances she's been reduced to. However, Ariadne knows she should put her guard up around him more, especially when she is unsure of what constitutes her acceptance of his actions.
But tonight she doesn't.
He's the only one she has ever been this vulnerable around and she needs it that way. No one else could possibly grasp her neurosis and her culpable feelings, because no one else has ever been a part of Arthur's world.
No one else knows what it's like to share a dream with someone, only to wake up and realize that reality isn't adequate.
And the worst part is that Ariadne can't tell a soul.
So in essence, Arthur is her one soul now, despite the fact that she's not entirely sure he has one beneath all the layers of his suit.
If anything, the way Arthur has behaved around her tonight, all tentative and quiet yet comforting in his own estranged way, should deter Ariadne from this conclusion, but it feels like nothing has changed, even though everything in away entirely has.
"I should…" she says, but finds her voice trailing off into a necessary ambiguity. Ariadne gestures towards her paint-chipped apartment door once the elevator halts at her floor.
She checks the time and sees that it's late. Sighing, Ariadne knows that she needs to climb into bed and get some sleep, even if it seems impossible considering the evening they have had.
Arthur merely nods, giving her that masking boyish grin of his as he makes his way back down the hall.
She has just pushed the door open when she turns around, somehow knowing that Arthur is looking at her. She twists her head and he's standing in front of the elevator with one hand in his pocket and a gentle look on his face, almost as if he wants to take in everything about her at this one moment.
Arthur's recognizable facial features don't change the entire time she stares at him, and when Ariadne locks the apartment door behind her, she can't help but quietly laugh to herself because he could have come in if he had asked.
–
I'm about to call out to them, they run away and I'll never get to see their faces again. I got to get back home.
Ariadne wakes up with a cry and lurches upright in her bed, sweat plastering her hair to her face. She scrambles out of the sheets and blindly fumbles for a cigarette on her nightstand.
Her legs stumble underneath her as she climbs onto her fire escape and shivers in the chilly early morning air. The hot smoke seals up her lungs and she manages a whimpering sigh of relief as she stuffs her lighter inside her sweats and shakes away the remaining traces of her nightmare from her head.
By the time Ariadne crawls back into bed, she's so mentally and physically exhausted that she's nearly asleep before her head collapses against her pillows.
The last thing she recalls is the cracks in her ceiling melting into nothingness as they blur together due to the effects of the nicotine and anxiety in her system.