Kiss With A Fist | Inception | R | Ariadne/Arthur
Title: Kiss With A Fist
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Rating: R
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Written for a prompt from inception_kink: they are enemies, who fall in love with each other. AU where Ariadne is a dream assassin.
A/N: Haven't written these two in a while. Prompt was too fun to pass up!
"Who the fuck are you," are the first words out of his mouth. He knows she's not a projection, he can tell by the smirk on her face.
"I think the real question here is, what the fuck are you doing in my client's head?" she asks him calmly. Her gun is pointed at his balls.
"Mostly money," Arthur concedes, attempting to back away from her. She follows him with every step he takes. "Some loyalty to the man I work for. You know. The usual."
The girl tilts her head to the side. "It's a shame we had to meet like this." She blasts his kneecaps, and then lays a volley into his gut. He's still screaming in pain when Dom finally puts him out of his misery with a quick bullet to the head.
-
The next time they meet, it's not a dream. Arthur rolls his totem a couple times to be sure. The girl sitting across from him on the subway looks soft and petite, with a flowered scarf tied around her neck loosely and a drawing pencil tucking behind her left ear. She looks almost peaceful, sitting there alone.
She catches his eye, and her face hardens instantly. The girl clearly recognizes him, and the hardness of the dream assassin becomes apparent in her visage. She stiffens, then lets a hand push her jacket aside almost imperceptibly: Arthur sees the flash of a gun, and a warning: follow me and die.
She gets off at the next stop, giving him a final glare. Once she's gone, Arthur finally allows himself to breath.
-
"Who is she?" Cobb asks Arthur when another job goes awry due to the mystery girl's interference. "It's like she's playing with us."
"I've been trying to pin a name on her, but it's proving more difficult than it should be," Arthur sighs.
"Meaning?" Cobb presses.
"That she's got some friends in high places. Or that she's working for someone pretty powerful."
Cobb groans. "Just what we need."
-
She spits on his pristine loafers. "Fuck you."
Arthur had finally, finally come out on top in their seemingly eternal battle for dominance. He's got her handcuffed to a radiator with his own handgun pointed at her head.
"Who do you work for?" he says, waving his gun at her.
"Bite me."
"I should let you know, I have no problem shooting a girl," Arthur tells her matter-of-factly.
"How egalitarian," she hisses.
"I try," Arthur grins. He points at her kneecap and shoots. She screams bloody murder.
"Oh, just you wait. This is just the beginning of the payback I've been accumulating," Arthur says, almost merrily. She moans, pressing her head against the floor.
"Now, who do you work for?" Arthur growls, crouching down. She raises her face from the floor, and it is full of rage.
"Go to hell," she barks at him.
He's sunk a bullet into her forehead in an instant, the fury inside him is so intense. For a moment, Arthur looks at his gun hand and blanches.
"Fuck!" Arthur yells down at the now-dead girl.
-
"So," she says casually, legs dangling off the kitchen counter. Arthur's tied to a chair, thoroughly bound and gagged. "You're Arthur. Cobb's point man."
Arthur does not respond, as he is gagged. The girl doesn't expect him to.
"I know you've been trying to find out about me," she continues blithely. "It's not easy to snoop on me."
Arthur eyes narrow.
"I'll give you a hint," she grins, and the smile makes her face look almost angelic. "We've got the same initials."
She shoots him in the head. He wakes up.
"That's Ariadne," he gasps in recognition. Cobb wakes up minutes later, looking up at Arthur expectantly. The point man has come to pacing the floor back and forth.
"So you know who she is," Cobb says slowly, carefully.
"Oh, I know," Arthur says, and there is a hint of nervous laughter about his voice. "We are in deep, deep shit."
-
They are circling each other in a large circle this time, both with guns pointed at the other's gut. Ariadne is wearing a skin colored, barely there boat-necked suit-dress that hits her mid thigh. Arthur finds himself concernedly distracted by it.
"Do you like it?" Ariadne grins when she catches him staring. "It makes me feel naked."
Arthur gulps.
"I don't believe our situation gives us much room to discuss each other's wardrobe, Ariadne," Arthur says, using her name like a weapon on its own. Ariadne raises an eyebrow.
"So you figured it out. Took long enough," she jeers, but it is a sexy jeer. Arthur gulps again. "You gotta let loose sometimes, Arthur. Unbutton your collar. Stay a while."
"I don't think so," Arthur says to her slowly. She approaches him, finally stopping at far too close a distance to be comfortable.
"I'm starting to like your stick in the mud antics," she says coyly. The muzzle of his gun presses against her stomach as she trails long fingers up his chest. "You're fun to play with."
"Well, as long as you're amused, I think my job is done," Arthur smirks. Ariadne beams.
"There's my guy," she laughs. She leans in for a kiss, and he blasts her in the stomach.
She's gurgling blood on the floor as he leaves. "See you soon, Arthur!" she calls happily, as if arranging a future play date. He can hear the blood slosh around her mouth as she says the words.
-
She knocks on his apartment door in reality the next day.
He has a gun at her face in less than two seconds.
"Woah, woah," she says, backing away. "I'm not armed, big guy." She raises her arms, revealing her waistband. It's clean. Arthur raises an eyebrow.
"Let me pat you down," he demands.
"Kinky," she grins. She raises her arms in a T position and Arthur gives her the most thorough pat-down he's ever given anyone in his life.
Clearing his throat, he stands up straight. "Who gave you this address," he asks her coldly.
"I found it," she says mysteriously. "I've got my ways." She pauses. "There's something I need to talk to you about."
Arthur raises his gun at her. "You're not coming in here." Arthur's apartment is his sanctuary. Even her knowing its exact location was sending him reeling. Would he have to move? Was he safe there anymore?
"I'm not gonna go blabbing about where you live," she assures him. "I'm here to give you a warning, for Christ-sakes."
Arthur is deeply confused.
"My client this time around is a bit of a sadist. I know you've been booked to extract information from her. Just... watch out," she says, giving him a half smile. "She's even worse than I am."
"And that's saying something," Arthur laughs. Ariadne's eyes twinkle, and she turns to leave.
"I'll see you in the dream, then," she says.
"Uh," Arthur responds tactfully, lowering his gun. "Thank you?"
"Don't mention it," she laughs. Then her face turns serious. "Really. Don't mention it."
-
Ariadne's right: the mark is a nightmare and a half. With Ariadne leading her hoards of nasty projections, Arthur is almost beaten back. Almost.
Taking Ariadne's warning into consideration, he had come prepared: home base was in a goddamn tank.
"This is rather daring," Eames tells him admiringly. "Bold of you, darling. Trying to impress someone?"
"Tanks offer excellent protection," Arthur informs Eames.
"So do moats. Build us a castle next time?"
-
"Last go around, that tank... it was a nice touch," she grins at him. "Very stable, very sound. Ms. Fitzgerald's projections were having a fit trying to get inside." Arthur does not grin back. This time, they're sparring with steel rapiers. Arthur fenced in high school, but hadn't picked up a blade in a while. Ariadne, on the other hand, parried and jabbed like she was born to cut throats.
"Thank you," he grunts, barely deflecting a jab meant for his right lung. She approaches him swiftly, crushing her hilt against his so that their swords cross, hand over hand, both fighting for dominance-
Arthur pushes forward and Ariadne staggers back. "Shit, I forgot how much it sucks to be a petite girl in hand-to-hand," she admits, brushing herself off.
"You hold your own," Arthur says gruffly. Ariadne's eyebrows shoot up, sword once again engaged in a heated dance with his own.
"Oh, is that a compliment?" Ariadne grins, face lighting up. She wheels his sword out of his hands at last, and it goes flying away from him. He puts his hands up in defeat as she points her weapon at his heart.
"You win," he tells her. Ariadne makes a little bow, then continues to approach him, until he's pressed up against the wall.
"Like I said," she drawls, sword pressed against his inner thigh. "You're fun."
"I try." She raises herself onto her tiptoes and presses her lips against his.
The shock doesn't leave his face until he hears the kick: "Non, je ne regrette rien..."
"I'll see you on the other side," she tells him, waving her rapier at him.
-
The next time they meet in dream, they don't fight at all. Arthur tells himself that preoccupying Ariadne would take away the brunt of the danger on the job. At least, it's the excuse he comes up with.
She catches his eye and wordlessly, they make their way outside the club of Nash's imagination.
"Your architect's not great," Ariadne tells Arthur lightly. "I could definitely think of something far more interesting, and structurally sound-"
"Ariadne," Arthur groans.
"Yes?"
"Shut up," and with that, he's covered her mouth with his own.
-
They never define exactly what it is the two of them have together: it's clearly not a healthy relationship, half of their encounters lead to sex, and the other half lead to one or the other blowing the other person's brains out. But the affection is there, bizarrely, in spite of everything. Arthur finds himself yearning to meet in both in and out of the dream. He is... distracted.
Sometimes he thinks that perhaps that has been her goal from the very beginning: to distract him. If that is indeed the case, then he would have to hand it to her: she is an excellent actress.
But he finds a small part of him hoping that it isn't an act. He doesn't have the strength to ask her, and she never brings it up. Arthur feels very protective of the small bubble of happiness they've created together.
Cobb tries to talk to him about it. Arthur decides that there's nothing to discuss.
"She's nothing, Dom. I've got her exactly where I want her."
"I'm going to be frank with you, Arthur: I'm pretty sure you don't have her at all." Cobb pauses. "But I'm sure she's got you." He puts a hand on his point man's shoulder. "Don't let her mess with your head."
-
"Let's elope," Ariadne suggests lazily, dragging her gun against his belly. They are both terribly naked, laying on a black sand beach.
"Good plan. Is that before or after you brutally murder me?" Arthur cracks.
She smiles at him, planting a kiss on his closed eyelid. "After, of course." She presses the barrel of her gun against his temple. "Close your eyes."
She always blows his brains out so tenderly.
-
"I love you," he tells her. They're outside the dreaming when he says it.
"Oh, babe," she sighs, pressing her hand to his cheek softly. "I know."
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Rating: R
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Written for a prompt from inception_kink: they are enemies, who fall in love with each other. AU where Ariadne is a dream assassin.
A/N: Haven't written these two in a while. Prompt was too fun to pass up!
"Who the fuck are you," are the first words out of his mouth. He knows she's not a projection, he can tell by the smirk on her face.
"I think the real question here is, what the fuck are you doing in my client's head?" she asks him calmly. Her gun is pointed at his balls.
"Mostly money," Arthur concedes, attempting to back away from her. She follows him with every step he takes. "Some loyalty to the man I work for. You know. The usual."
The girl tilts her head to the side. "It's a shame we had to meet like this." She blasts his kneecaps, and then lays a volley into his gut. He's still screaming in pain when Dom finally puts him out of his misery with a quick bullet to the head.
-
The next time they meet, it's not a dream. Arthur rolls his totem a couple times to be sure. The girl sitting across from him on the subway looks soft and petite, with a flowered scarf tied around her neck loosely and a drawing pencil tucking behind her left ear. She looks almost peaceful, sitting there alone.
She catches his eye, and her face hardens instantly. The girl clearly recognizes him, and the hardness of the dream assassin becomes apparent in her visage. She stiffens, then lets a hand push her jacket aside almost imperceptibly: Arthur sees the flash of a gun, and a warning: follow me and die.
She gets off at the next stop, giving him a final glare. Once she's gone, Arthur finally allows himself to breath.
-
"Who is she?" Cobb asks Arthur when another job goes awry due to the mystery girl's interference. "It's like she's playing with us."
"I've been trying to pin a name on her, but it's proving more difficult than it should be," Arthur sighs.
"Meaning?" Cobb presses.
"That she's got some friends in high places. Or that she's working for someone pretty powerful."
Cobb groans. "Just what we need."
-
She spits on his pristine loafers. "Fuck you."
Arthur had finally, finally come out on top in their seemingly eternal battle for dominance. He's got her handcuffed to a radiator with his own handgun pointed at her head.
"Who do you work for?" he says, waving his gun at her.
"Bite me."
"I should let you know, I have no problem shooting a girl," Arthur tells her matter-of-factly.
"How egalitarian," she hisses.
"I try," Arthur grins. He points at her kneecap and shoots. She screams bloody murder.
"Oh, just you wait. This is just the beginning of the payback I've been accumulating," Arthur says, almost merrily. She moans, pressing her head against the floor.
"Now, who do you work for?" Arthur growls, crouching down. She raises her face from the floor, and it is full of rage.
"Go to hell," she barks at him.
He's sunk a bullet into her forehead in an instant, the fury inside him is so intense. For a moment, Arthur looks at his gun hand and blanches.
"Fuck!" Arthur yells down at the now-dead girl.
-
"So," she says casually, legs dangling off the kitchen counter. Arthur's tied to a chair, thoroughly bound and gagged. "You're Arthur. Cobb's point man."
Arthur does not respond, as he is gagged. The girl doesn't expect him to.
"I know you've been trying to find out about me," she continues blithely. "It's not easy to snoop on me."
Arthur eyes narrow.
"I'll give you a hint," she grins, and the smile makes her face look almost angelic. "We've got the same initials."
She shoots him in the head. He wakes up.
"That's Ariadne," he gasps in recognition. Cobb wakes up minutes later, looking up at Arthur expectantly. The point man has come to pacing the floor back and forth.
"So you know who she is," Cobb says slowly, carefully.
"Oh, I know," Arthur says, and there is a hint of nervous laughter about his voice. "We are in deep, deep shit."
-
They are circling each other in a large circle this time, both with guns pointed at the other's gut. Ariadne is wearing a skin colored, barely there boat-necked suit-dress that hits her mid thigh. Arthur finds himself concernedly distracted by it.
"Do you like it?" Ariadne grins when she catches him staring. "It makes me feel naked."
Arthur gulps.
"I don't believe our situation gives us much room to discuss each other's wardrobe, Ariadne," Arthur says, using her name like a weapon on its own. Ariadne raises an eyebrow.
"So you figured it out. Took long enough," she jeers, but it is a sexy jeer. Arthur gulps again. "You gotta let loose sometimes, Arthur. Unbutton your collar. Stay a while."
"I don't think so," Arthur says to her slowly. She approaches him, finally stopping at far too close a distance to be comfortable.
"I'm starting to like your stick in the mud antics," she says coyly. The muzzle of his gun presses against her stomach as she trails long fingers up his chest. "You're fun to play with."
"Well, as long as you're amused, I think my job is done," Arthur smirks. Ariadne beams.
"There's my guy," she laughs. She leans in for a kiss, and he blasts her in the stomach.
She's gurgling blood on the floor as he leaves. "See you soon, Arthur!" she calls happily, as if arranging a future play date. He can hear the blood slosh around her mouth as she says the words.
-
She knocks on his apartment door in reality the next day.
He has a gun at her face in less than two seconds.
"Woah, woah," she says, backing away. "I'm not armed, big guy." She raises her arms, revealing her waistband. It's clean. Arthur raises an eyebrow.
"Let me pat you down," he demands.
"Kinky," she grins. She raises her arms in a T position and Arthur gives her the most thorough pat-down he's ever given anyone in his life.
Clearing his throat, he stands up straight. "Who gave you this address," he asks her coldly.
"I found it," she says mysteriously. "I've got my ways." She pauses. "There's something I need to talk to you about."
Arthur raises his gun at her. "You're not coming in here." Arthur's apartment is his sanctuary. Even her knowing its exact location was sending him reeling. Would he have to move? Was he safe there anymore?
"I'm not gonna go blabbing about where you live," she assures him. "I'm here to give you a warning, for Christ-sakes."
Arthur is deeply confused.
"My client this time around is a bit of a sadist. I know you've been booked to extract information from her. Just... watch out," she says, giving him a half smile. "She's even worse than I am."
"And that's saying something," Arthur laughs. Ariadne's eyes twinkle, and she turns to leave.
"I'll see you in the dream, then," she says.
"Uh," Arthur responds tactfully, lowering his gun. "Thank you?"
"Don't mention it," she laughs. Then her face turns serious. "Really. Don't mention it."
-
Ariadne's right: the mark is a nightmare and a half. With Ariadne leading her hoards of nasty projections, Arthur is almost beaten back. Almost.
Taking Ariadne's warning into consideration, he had come prepared: home base was in a goddamn tank.
"This is rather daring," Eames tells him admiringly. "Bold of you, darling. Trying to impress someone?"
"Tanks offer excellent protection," Arthur informs Eames.
"So do moats. Build us a castle next time?"
-
"Last go around, that tank... it was a nice touch," she grins at him. "Very stable, very sound. Ms. Fitzgerald's projections were having a fit trying to get inside." Arthur does not grin back. This time, they're sparring with steel rapiers. Arthur fenced in high school, but hadn't picked up a blade in a while. Ariadne, on the other hand, parried and jabbed like she was born to cut throats.
"Thank you," he grunts, barely deflecting a jab meant for his right lung. She approaches him swiftly, crushing her hilt against his so that their swords cross, hand over hand, both fighting for dominance-
Arthur pushes forward and Ariadne staggers back. "Shit, I forgot how much it sucks to be a petite girl in hand-to-hand," she admits, brushing herself off.
"You hold your own," Arthur says gruffly. Ariadne's eyebrows shoot up, sword once again engaged in a heated dance with his own.
"Oh, is that a compliment?" Ariadne grins, face lighting up. She wheels his sword out of his hands at last, and it goes flying away from him. He puts his hands up in defeat as she points her weapon at his heart.
"You win," he tells her. Ariadne makes a little bow, then continues to approach him, until he's pressed up against the wall.
"Like I said," she drawls, sword pressed against his inner thigh. "You're fun."
"I try." She raises herself onto her tiptoes and presses her lips against his.
The shock doesn't leave his face until he hears the kick: "Non, je ne regrette rien..."
"I'll see you on the other side," she tells him, waving her rapier at him.
-
The next time they meet in dream, they don't fight at all. Arthur tells himself that preoccupying Ariadne would take away the brunt of the danger on the job. At least, it's the excuse he comes up with.
She catches his eye and wordlessly, they make their way outside the club of Nash's imagination.
"Your architect's not great," Ariadne tells Arthur lightly. "I could definitely think of something far more interesting, and structurally sound-"
"Ariadne," Arthur groans.
"Yes?"
"Shut up," and with that, he's covered her mouth with his own.
-
They never define exactly what it is the two of them have together: it's clearly not a healthy relationship, half of their encounters lead to sex, and the other half lead to one or the other blowing the other person's brains out. But the affection is there, bizarrely, in spite of everything. Arthur finds himself yearning to meet in both in and out of the dream. He is... distracted.
Sometimes he thinks that perhaps that has been her goal from the very beginning: to distract him. If that is indeed the case, then he would have to hand it to her: she is an excellent actress.
But he finds a small part of him hoping that it isn't an act. He doesn't have the strength to ask her, and she never brings it up. Arthur feels very protective of the small bubble of happiness they've created together.
Cobb tries to talk to him about it. Arthur decides that there's nothing to discuss.
"She's nothing, Dom. I've got her exactly where I want her."
"I'm going to be frank with you, Arthur: I'm pretty sure you don't have her at all." Cobb pauses. "But I'm sure she's got you." He puts a hand on his point man's shoulder. "Don't let her mess with your head."
-
"Let's elope," Ariadne suggests lazily, dragging her gun against his belly. They are both terribly naked, laying on a black sand beach.
"Good plan. Is that before or after you brutally murder me?" Arthur cracks.
She smiles at him, planting a kiss on his closed eyelid. "After, of course." She presses the barrel of her gun against his temple. "Close your eyes."
She always blows his brains out so tenderly.
-
"I love you," he tells her. They're outside the dreaming when he says it.
"Oh, babe," she sighs, pressing her hand to his cheek softly. "I know."