every question fades away [inception]
Title: every question fades away
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Summary: The one thing he wanted, above all else, was to make her laugh.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For humanracing, who requested this like in round 3 and I PROMISED I'd fill it. I'm a bad friend. So here it is, in all its 3,172 word glory. For the prompt: Eames makes Ariadne laugh without even trying. Arthur doesn't like that very much. He is on a quest to make Ariadne laugh, only he continuously fails at it. IDK if that's how it ended up, but this is what I wrote. &hearts
It shouldn’t have made him mad. Really. It wasn’t a big deal. They weren’t together, by any means of the word. Who cared if he’d kissed her quickly in a dream - he was a man, he had that excuse, right? Who cared if she had watched him so expectantly for days after they woke up. It wasn’t his responsibility to follow that kiss up with dinner or a movie or, God forbid, another, was it?
No. It wasn’t.
Ariadne was beautiful, there wasn’t any doubt in Arthur’s mind about that. Her hair and her eyes and her voice and the tiny scar she had on her collarbone that she always managed to hide with some ludicrously printed scarf, which, at the moment, were a source of great amusement for Eames, who was making Ariadne laugh hysterically.
And that was Arthur’s problem.
Every single person could make her laugh. Eames, Yusuf, even Cobb, of all people. They’d say something that might not even be remotely funny and she’d burst into laughter. It was endearing, really, but Arthur feigned annoyance, calmly asking everyone to keep it down. Her laughter sent chills down his spine. Mostly because she wasn’t laughing at something he said, or because she wasn’t with him when she did it. He yearned to be the source of that laugh - loud and beautiful and infectious.
But he failed on every count.
Arthur didn’t know any jokes. He grew up in military schools and spent his summers and winters with his grandparents, who in turn sent him to academic programs in Brussels or London for the holiday seasons, most of which were conducted in total silence. It was little wonder, then, that Arthur exited his teen years with little imagination and few jokes to tell. He knew all the terrible ones and he knew the ones about French cowardice (what kind of American military student didn’t?) and he knew a simple knock-knock joke. But nothing like what Eames could tell. None of the raunchy ones Yusuf told.
The terrible and awful thing was - Eames hardly had to try. He simply wore something that was a putrid green color and Ariadne would giggle for hours.
Her giggle - Arthur didn’t even want to think about her giggle. It was soft and she covered it with the back of her hand or pursed her lips together. He could never make her do that. Ever. Sometimes she’d smile at him when he walked by. It always surprised him, her smile. If he couldn’t make her laugh, how could he do that? He’d try to do something in return, but she’d have turned away and he’d have walked by and the moment was gone. Lost to the empty air between them.
He could make Eames laugh. He did it all the time. Everything Arthur said the forger thought was downright hysterical. Yusuf, too. Even Cobb commented once that Arthur always had a distinct sense of humor.
"It takes a trained ear to pick up on a point-man’s jokes. I’ve never met a particularly funny one as long as I’ve been in the business," Eames had said once. But no one told that to Ariadne. No one told her that she needed to know Arthur to laugh at the things he said.
And so she continued to make his life completely miserable.
It shouldn’t have been happening. Arthur shouldn’t have been having this problems. Ariadne was a girl. A student and a distraction from what he needed to be focusing on. She was stellar, really, balancing her studies with the jobs, managing to finish all projects on time, legal and otherwise. Arthur felt he could take a leaf out of her book - he was having a hard time concentrating on his work when she was around.
Eventually, he moved all his papers into a small back office in their Parisian warehouse. They’d decided to make it their homestead for the time being, so as to let Ariadne finish and to distance themselves from Cobb. He was enjoying the life of a free man. Arthur didn’t want to burden his thoughts with their work.
The sound of Ariadne’s laughter didn’t fail to penetrate the walls of his office. He kept the door open, but a soft background of piano music played at all times. It was the music he’d grown up with - Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, all the pretentious and overrated classics of his childhood. They were the only music he could stand to listen to anymore. Training from his mother, he begrudgingly thought when Ariadne talked about new artists or concerts with Eames and Yusuf. Arthur simply fast forwarded through the song and another slow and steady waltz came onto his speakers.
"You use tapes?" Ariadne asked one evening, walking into his office unannounced. She smiled at the tape deck and his pile of cassettes.
"My parents left me with very little. Their music collection was one of those things."
"They’re dead?" Arthur nodded. "I’m sorry."
"It’s not a problem. They’re hardly different now than they were when they were alive."
It was dark humor, something Eames would have appreciated if he’d been there. Ariadne frowned, picking up one of the tapes and reading the title.
"It’s rather generic."
"They were rather generic fans." Ariadne shrugged, setting the tape down and resting a hand on Arthur’s shoulder before nodding and leaving him to his work. The heat from her touch lasted the rest of the day, and he kicked himself all the way home for the joke that had made her face go sour.
Arthur felt like an idiot. And that was something he just didn’t tolerate from himself.
He kept up with the idiot routine for a while. It wasn’t glaringly obvious to anyone but himself, really. Most of his emotions had always been rather internalized. Sadness, he kept to himself. Fear, that stayed inside. Anger - that one he was still working on. But idiocy. It stayed buried, and deep. Arthur felt hollowed and stupid inside, but outwardly, he appeared fine.
Not that it wasn’t taking its toll. He forgot a folder in the warehouse one evening that he needed for his work he was doing at home. He went out to get lunch and forgot what everyone had ordered. There were dishes in his sink that he swore he’d cleaned, but had sat there for a good three days. He even caught himself looking at a kitten in a cage marked "For Sale" before realizing that having a pet was the stupidest idea he’d ever had.
Other than continue to work with Ariadne.
It wasn’t a huge issue, really. It shouldn’t have bothered him. She was intelligent and she was good at what she did and that should have been enough.
But for Arthur, it wasn’t.
"What do you think about London?" Ariadne asked one evening. She enjoyed throwing out random questions to him when she and Arthur were alone. He looked up from his work, her voice pulling him out of the first real bout of concentration he’d had in days. He was both thankful and annoyed.
"What?"
"London. What do you think about it?"
"It’s lovely if your favorite color is gray and a light shade of mustard yellow."
"So Eames?" Arthur laughed and looked up. The noise had left his mouth before he had even had time to react to it. Ariadne looked at him curiously and smiled a bit before returning to her work.
He wanted to trade with her, for a moment. Give her his laugh, just so he could see it light up her eyes. But she was gone again, immersed in her models and unaware of his existence.
He wanted to die.
"I’ve noticed," Eames began one day, "that you are having far too little sex." The forger sat perched on the end of Arthur’s work bench, and it was groaning a bit under him. Ariadne glanced up for a minute, then back down at her work. Eames regularly bothered Arthur about this - it was little more than old news.
"You’re going to break my desk."
"Is that a veiled insult about my weight?"
"It is if you break it."
"Fair enough." Eames stepped onto the floor. "My point, however, still stands."
"It’s not important. Now go away, I have things to do."
"Things, things, things. Arthur, all you ever do are things. You should think about doing people more often. It’s a lot more fun."
"Eames, I know for a fact that the last time you had sex was six months ago, so if I wanted advice on my sex life, I’d ask Yusuf, considering he’s had a steady lay since when finished the Fischer job." Yusuf choked on his water and blushed, mumbling something and making a quick escape from the room. Eames looked up sharply and followed him out with eagle eyes.
"Little shit head. Told me he was a virgin."
"That was a joke, Mr. Eames. I thought you’d notice, considering you’re so good at telling them. Now please, get away from my desk. Your gravitational pull is putting a strain on the wood." Eames scowled and sulked out of the warehouse, kicking a stool along the way. When he disappeared Ariadne looked up.
"You’re so mean to him."
"Eames is an idiot. But he’s a talented idiot, and a genius, too. He’s tough skinned, he’ll get over it." Arthur glanced up to see her smiling widely. "What?"
"Does Eames know you think he’s so wonderful?"
"No. And if you tell him, I’ll kill you with my bare hands." Ariadne shook her head and bent down over her model again. Arthur sauntered over, looking over her shoulder. "It looks good."
"Thanks. It’s yours, by the way."
"I thought so." He gave her a smile and leaned in close. "Second level. Looks great. Have you ever been to New York City?" Ariadne shook her head. "You designed this part like a native. It looks fantastic."
"All your notes were perfect. I don’t know how you can remember a place in such detail. I mean, I guess that’s your job, but still…"
"New York is where I feel at home. I have an apartment there. I spent summers with my grandparents there. My father worked there. Being away from it’s hard. It’s really hard." Ariadne had turned to face him, watching him speak with wonder in her eyes. "I’m sorry. I’ll let you finish."
"I didn’t know you felt that way."
"It’s not important. You’re doing great. Keep it up." He walked quickly from her desk, pretending he couldn’t hear the words whispered under her breath -
I wish you’d be honest with me.
It happened on a Monday.
Arthur had always been indifferent to Mondays. They were no different than Tuesdays or Wednesdays or any other day of the week to him. But today, he was feeling particularly venomous toward Mondays, as he was every other day of the week.
Mostly because he was still feeling like a complete idiot.
It didn’t improve his mood that Yusuf had brought his cat into the warehouse. The animal was lounging on Arthur’s desk, looking just as snappy as Arthur felt. He took his things from the workbench and allowed the cat this win. It looked rather smug for an animal, but Arthur let that slide. She was just a cat, after all.
The rest of the morning passed quietly. Every once in a while Eames would sneeze violently and yell at Yusuf. Yusuf made excuses about his apartment being de-molded, or something like that, but Arthur wasn’t paying much attention. Sometimes, Ariadne’s laugh would float in to remind him that he wasn’t the one making her do it. The cat padded in gently once and leapt onto Arthur’s desk, allowing him to scratch its ears. They had an understanding it seemed. And Arthur had respect for any creature that could set Eames on edge.
The sun began to set beyond the large windows and Arthur felt his stomach protest - he hadn’t eaten all day. Standing up, he made his way out of the office and into the warehouse. He hardly had time to notice the cat dart in front of him before he could skirt out of the way.
The animal screeched as it ran past him and Arthur hit the ground with a rather awful smack. Eames stood up quickly and Yusuf began scolding his pet. Arthur was seeing stars and feeling the beginnings of an awful headache when it happened:
Ariadne burst into laughter.
She quickly tried to stifle it because, really, it wasn’t funny. But Arthur, Arthur, of all people, had lost his balance over a cat and fallen right onto the floor. She could hardly contain herself. Eames’s face broke out into a wide grin and Yusuf began to chuckle. Arthur slowly sat up and felt the laughter rise in his own chest. Nothing about it was remotely funny. Except for everything that was.
Arthur made a mental note to give the cat a bed in the warehouse.
Ariadne showed up unannounced with a plate of cookies that evening.
"Uh, hi?" Arthur stood uncertainly in the door frame, not at all prepared for her visit. His hair had dried messily and he was wearing a pair of jeans (of all things, he thought) and a long sleeved sweater. He looked rather pedestrian and, as Ariadne thought to herself, normal. Not at all like the pin-straight Arthur she knew.
"These are for you," she said after taking in the bizarreness of it all. Not that it should have been. Arthur had every right to be comfortable. It was just…strange. "I’m sorry about laughing at you today. It was rude."
"Ariadne, it’s okay."
"No, no! Take them! I spent like, I don’t even know how many Euros on those packages of pre-made dough, so it’d be nice if it didn’t go to waste." Arthur smiled and cleared the way for her. "Thanks."
His apartment wasn’t anything like she thought it would be. It didn’t have a fantastic view and it was quite literally one room. The bed was crammed into the corner and a couch sat facing the sliding doors. The bookshelves were empty, save for a few novels he’d picked up in Paris and the tape deck and its accompanying collection sat on the floor.
"This is…"
"It’s shit," Arthur finished for her. "But it’s cheap and I’m not in Paris often enough to care about maintaining something with multiple rooms."
"But you could have, I don’t know, one of those modern monstrosities downtown or something. Jesus. This sucks."
"If it’s any consolation, my apartment in New York is much nicer. It has a bedroom, at least." Ariadne laughed and Arthur felt himself grin widely - twice in one day. "Thank you, for these." He pulled out a cookie and bit into it.
"You’re so confusing," she muttered, pulling off her jacket and settling onto the old couch. It creaked under her and she didn’t want to think about where it had been. Arthur sat next to her, calmly chewing on a cookie. "I don’t understand you most of the time." She looked at him, leaning her head against the back of the couch, watching him eat. "How’d you get to be you?"
"Years of practice."
"See? There you go again. I never know when you’re being honest. If you’re funny, I can’t tell. If you’re serious, I need to look at Eames to be sure. You’re so…I don’t know. You mess me up. I don’t know how to act around you. What is it you like? What do you want?"
Arthur found this all very interesting, given that he felt the same way about her. He swallowed the cookie and faced her, noticing for the first time that their knees were touching. He felt very young.
"The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything is to make you laugh. I like - no. I love the sound of it. I love your voice. I love your smile… I want…" Arthur didn’t like saying these things. He felt like an idiot all over again. "I want you."
Ariadne covered her hand with the back of her mouth, stifling one of those God-forsaken giggles again.
"Arthur," she said, smiling broadly. "If you wanted that, you should have just said so." He raised an eyebrow. "I want you, too."
She kissed him. Arthur couldn’t understand, in all these months, why he hadn’t imagined kissing her more often. It had been the laugh-fixation. Her voice. The things she said. He was so caught up in the little things, he didn’t realize he wanted the big things, too. Ariadne straddled his waist, her fingers mussing up his already untidy hair. His hands ghosted at her sides, tripping over her back and dipping below her waistband.
"You know," she said, breaking away. Arthur fought to not make a noise of protest. "Eames and Yusuf can make me laugh a lot. But you make me smile every day."
"That was unbelievably cheesy."
"It’s the truth."
"Good enough." He kissed her again, lifting her up and settling her on his awkwardly placed bed. "This makes a lot of noise. I apologize." She laughed loud and honestly, throwing her head back and exposing her neck. He kissed her there, feeling the sound of her voice through her throat, almost tasting it.
All through the night, he kept his mouth there, or on her face or at her lips, so he could always hear her voice or the noises she made. He trapped them with his lips, keeping them with him. The way she said his name, the tiny pleas for just a little more. Arthur hardly recognized his own voice when he responded to her. He’d never said a name like that before, hadn’t made noises of want and need like that in a long time.
When he woke up, she was curled with her back against him. Arthur tried to move, but the bed gave a loud protest and she jerked awake.
"Sorry."
"You said that last night," she murmured, turning over and burying her face into his neck. "Do you feel better?" Arthur hummed against the top of her head. "Good. Me, too." She moved a little and the bed creaked again. Finally, she sat up, the sheets pulled across her chest. "Arthur. If this is going to happen again, I’m going to insist you get a new bed. Or you spend large quantities of time in my apartment." Arthur laughed this time and Ariadne bent down to his neck to catch the noise with her own lips.
"Want to know a secret?" she asked quietly. He nodded. "The one thing I’ve wanted most of all since we got back from LA was to make you laugh." Arthur looked at her curiously. "Isn’t that funny?"
It was, Arthur thought as he kissed her neck and made promises of pancakes for breakfast. It really was.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Summary: The one thing he wanted, above all else, was to make her laugh.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For humanracing, who requested this like in round 3 and I PROMISED I'd fill it. I'm a bad friend. So here it is, in all its 3,172 word glory. For the prompt: Eames makes Ariadne laugh without even trying. Arthur doesn't like that very much. He is on a quest to make Ariadne laugh, only he continuously fails at it. IDK if that's how it ended up, but this is what I wrote. &hearts
It shouldn’t have made him mad. Really. It wasn’t a big deal. They weren’t together, by any means of the word. Who cared if he’d kissed her quickly in a dream - he was a man, he had that excuse, right? Who cared if she had watched him so expectantly for days after they woke up. It wasn’t his responsibility to follow that kiss up with dinner or a movie or, God forbid, another, was it?
No. It wasn’t.
Ariadne was beautiful, there wasn’t any doubt in Arthur’s mind about that. Her hair and her eyes and her voice and the tiny scar she had on her collarbone that she always managed to hide with some ludicrously printed scarf, which, at the moment, were a source of great amusement for Eames, who was making Ariadne laugh hysterically.
And that was Arthur’s problem.
Every single person could make her laugh. Eames, Yusuf, even Cobb, of all people. They’d say something that might not even be remotely funny and she’d burst into laughter. It was endearing, really, but Arthur feigned annoyance, calmly asking everyone to keep it down. Her laughter sent chills down his spine. Mostly because she wasn’t laughing at something he said, or because she wasn’t with him when she did it. He yearned to be the source of that laugh - loud and beautiful and infectious.
But he failed on every count.
Arthur didn’t know any jokes. He grew up in military schools and spent his summers and winters with his grandparents, who in turn sent him to academic programs in Brussels or London for the holiday seasons, most of which were conducted in total silence. It was little wonder, then, that Arthur exited his teen years with little imagination and few jokes to tell. He knew all the terrible ones and he knew the ones about French cowardice (what kind of American military student didn’t?) and he knew a simple knock-knock joke. But nothing like what Eames could tell. None of the raunchy ones Yusuf told.
The terrible and awful thing was - Eames hardly had to try. He simply wore something that was a putrid green color and Ariadne would giggle for hours.
Her giggle - Arthur didn’t even want to think about her giggle. It was soft and she covered it with the back of her hand or pursed her lips together. He could never make her do that. Ever. Sometimes she’d smile at him when he walked by. It always surprised him, her smile. If he couldn’t make her laugh, how could he do that? He’d try to do something in return, but she’d have turned away and he’d have walked by and the moment was gone. Lost to the empty air between them.
He could make Eames laugh. He did it all the time. Everything Arthur said the forger thought was downright hysterical. Yusuf, too. Even Cobb commented once that Arthur always had a distinct sense of humor.
"It takes a trained ear to pick up on a point-man’s jokes. I’ve never met a particularly funny one as long as I’ve been in the business," Eames had said once. But no one told that to Ariadne. No one told her that she needed to know Arthur to laugh at the things he said.
And so she continued to make his life completely miserable.
It shouldn’t have been happening. Arthur shouldn’t have been having this problems. Ariadne was a girl. A student and a distraction from what he needed to be focusing on. She was stellar, really, balancing her studies with the jobs, managing to finish all projects on time, legal and otherwise. Arthur felt he could take a leaf out of her book - he was having a hard time concentrating on his work when she was around.
Eventually, he moved all his papers into a small back office in their Parisian warehouse. They’d decided to make it their homestead for the time being, so as to let Ariadne finish and to distance themselves from Cobb. He was enjoying the life of a free man. Arthur didn’t want to burden his thoughts with their work.
The sound of Ariadne’s laughter didn’t fail to penetrate the walls of his office. He kept the door open, but a soft background of piano music played at all times. It was the music he’d grown up with - Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, all the pretentious and overrated classics of his childhood. They were the only music he could stand to listen to anymore. Training from his mother, he begrudgingly thought when Ariadne talked about new artists or concerts with Eames and Yusuf. Arthur simply fast forwarded through the song and another slow and steady waltz came onto his speakers.
"You use tapes?" Ariadne asked one evening, walking into his office unannounced. She smiled at the tape deck and his pile of cassettes.
"My parents left me with very little. Their music collection was one of those things."
"They’re dead?" Arthur nodded. "I’m sorry."
"It’s not a problem. They’re hardly different now than they were when they were alive."
It was dark humor, something Eames would have appreciated if he’d been there. Ariadne frowned, picking up one of the tapes and reading the title.
"It’s rather generic."
"They were rather generic fans." Ariadne shrugged, setting the tape down and resting a hand on Arthur’s shoulder before nodding and leaving him to his work. The heat from her touch lasted the rest of the day, and he kicked himself all the way home for the joke that had made her face go sour.
Arthur felt like an idiot. And that was something he just didn’t tolerate from himself.
He kept up with the idiot routine for a while. It wasn’t glaringly obvious to anyone but himself, really. Most of his emotions had always been rather internalized. Sadness, he kept to himself. Fear, that stayed inside. Anger - that one he was still working on. But idiocy. It stayed buried, and deep. Arthur felt hollowed and stupid inside, but outwardly, he appeared fine.
Not that it wasn’t taking its toll. He forgot a folder in the warehouse one evening that he needed for his work he was doing at home. He went out to get lunch and forgot what everyone had ordered. There were dishes in his sink that he swore he’d cleaned, but had sat there for a good three days. He even caught himself looking at a kitten in a cage marked "For Sale" before realizing that having a pet was the stupidest idea he’d ever had.
Other than continue to work with Ariadne.
It wasn’t a huge issue, really. It shouldn’t have bothered him. She was intelligent and she was good at what she did and that should have been enough.
But for Arthur, it wasn’t.
"What do you think about London?" Ariadne asked one evening. She enjoyed throwing out random questions to him when she and Arthur were alone. He looked up from his work, her voice pulling him out of the first real bout of concentration he’d had in days. He was both thankful and annoyed.
"What?"
"London. What do you think about it?"
"It’s lovely if your favorite color is gray and a light shade of mustard yellow."
"So Eames?" Arthur laughed and looked up. The noise had left his mouth before he had even had time to react to it. Ariadne looked at him curiously and smiled a bit before returning to her work.
He wanted to trade with her, for a moment. Give her his laugh, just so he could see it light up her eyes. But she was gone again, immersed in her models and unaware of his existence.
He wanted to die.
"I’ve noticed," Eames began one day, "that you are having far too little sex." The forger sat perched on the end of Arthur’s work bench, and it was groaning a bit under him. Ariadne glanced up for a minute, then back down at her work. Eames regularly bothered Arthur about this - it was little more than old news.
"You’re going to break my desk."
"Is that a veiled insult about my weight?"
"It is if you break it."
"Fair enough." Eames stepped onto the floor. "My point, however, still stands."
"It’s not important. Now go away, I have things to do."
"Things, things, things. Arthur, all you ever do are things. You should think about doing people more often. It’s a lot more fun."
"Eames, I know for a fact that the last time you had sex was six months ago, so if I wanted advice on my sex life, I’d ask Yusuf, considering he’s had a steady lay since when finished the Fischer job." Yusuf choked on his water and blushed, mumbling something and making a quick escape from the room. Eames looked up sharply and followed him out with eagle eyes.
"Little shit head. Told me he was a virgin."
"That was a joke, Mr. Eames. I thought you’d notice, considering you’re so good at telling them. Now please, get away from my desk. Your gravitational pull is putting a strain on the wood." Eames scowled and sulked out of the warehouse, kicking a stool along the way. When he disappeared Ariadne looked up.
"You’re so mean to him."
"Eames is an idiot. But he’s a talented idiot, and a genius, too. He’s tough skinned, he’ll get over it." Arthur glanced up to see her smiling widely. "What?"
"Does Eames know you think he’s so wonderful?"
"No. And if you tell him, I’ll kill you with my bare hands." Ariadne shook her head and bent down over her model again. Arthur sauntered over, looking over her shoulder. "It looks good."
"Thanks. It’s yours, by the way."
"I thought so." He gave her a smile and leaned in close. "Second level. Looks great. Have you ever been to New York City?" Ariadne shook her head. "You designed this part like a native. It looks fantastic."
"All your notes were perfect. I don’t know how you can remember a place in such detail. I mean, I guess that’s your job, but still…"
"New York is where I feel at home. I have an apartment there. I spent summers with my grandparents there. My father worked there. Being away from it’s hard. It’s really hard." Ariadne had turned to face him, watching him speak with wonder in her eyes. "I’m sorry. I’ll let you finish."
"I didn’t know you felt that way."
"It’s not important. You’re doing great. Keep it up." He walked quickly from her desk, pretending he couldn’t hear the words whispered under her breath -
I wish you’d be honest with me.
It happened on a Monday.
Arthur had always been indifferent to Mondays. They were no different than Tuesdays or Wednesdays or any other day of the week to him. But today, he was feeling particularly venomous toward Mondays, as he was every other day of the week.
Mostly because he was still feeling like a complete idiot.
It didn’t improve his mood that Yusuf had brought his cat into the warehouse. The animal was lounging on Arthur’s desk, looking just as snappy as Arthur felt. He took his things from the workbench and allowed the cat this win. It looked rather smug for an animal, but Arthur let that slide. She was just a cat, after all.
The rest of the morning passed quietly. Every once in a while Eames would sneeze violently and yell at Yusuf. Yusuf made excuses about his apartment being de-molded, or something like that, but Arthur wasn’t paying much attention. Sometimes, Ariadne’s laugh would float in to remind him that he wasn’t the one making her do it. The cat padded in gently once and leapt onto Arthur’s desk, allowing him to scratch its ears. They had an understanding it seemed. And Arthur had respect for any creature that could set Eames on edge.
The sun began to set beyond the large windows and Arthur felt his stomach protest - he hadn’t eaten all day. Standing up, he made his way out of the office and into the warehouse. He hardly had time to notice the cat dart in front of him before he could skirt out of the way.
The animal screeched as it ran past him and Arthur hit the ground with a rather awful smack. Eames stood up quickly and Yusuf began scolding his pet. Arthur was seeing stars and feeling the beginnings of an awful headache when it happened:
Ariadne burst into laughter.
She quickly tried to stifle it because, really, it wasn’t funny. But Arthur, Arthur, of all people, had lost his balance over a cat and fallen right onto the floor. She could hardly contain herself. Eames’s face broke out into a wide grin and Yusuf began to chuckle. Arthur slowly sat up and felt the laughter rise in his own chest. Nothing about it was remotely funny. Except for everything that was.
Arthur made a mental note to give the cat a bed in the warehouse.
Ariadne showed up unannounced with a plate of cookies that evening.
"Uh, hi?" Arthur stood uncertainly in the door frame, not at all prepared for her visit. His hair had dried messily and he was wearing a pair of jeans (of all things, he thought) and a long sleeved sweater. He looked rather pedestrian and, as Ariadne thought to herself, normal. Not at all like the pin-straight Arthur she knew.
"These are for you," she said after taking in the bizarreness of it all. Not that it should have been. Arthur had every right to be comfortable. It was just…strange. "I’m sorry about laughing at you today. It was rude."
"Ariadne, it’s okay."
"No, no! Take them! I spent like, I don’t even know how many Euros on those packages of pre-made dough, so it’d be nice if it didn’t go to waste." Arthur smiled and cleared the way for her. "Thanks."
His apartment wasn’t anything like she thought it would be. It didn’t have a fantastic view and it was quite literally one room. The bed was crammed into the corner and a couch sat facing the sliding doors. The bookshelves were empty, save for a few novels he’d picked up in Paris and the tape deck and its accompanying collection sat on the floor.
"This is…"
"It’s shit," Arthur finished for her. "But it’s cheap and I’m not in Paris often enough to care about maintaining something with multiple rooms."
"But you could have, I don’t know, one of those modern monstrosities downtown or something. Jesus. This sucks."
"If it’s any consolation, my apartment in New York is much nicer. It has a bedroom, at least." Ariadne laughed and Arthur felt himself grin widely - twice in one day. "Thank you, for these." He pulled out a cookie and bit into it.
"You’re so confusing," she muttered, pulling off her jacket and settling onto the old couch. It creaked under her and she didn’t want to think about where it had been. Arthur sat next to her, calmly chewing on a cookie. "I don’t understand you most of the time." She looked at him, leaning her head against the back of the couch, watching him eat. "How’d you get to be you?"
"Years of practice."
"See? There you go again. I never know when you’re being honest. If you’re funny, I can’t tell. If you’re serious, I need to look at Eames to be sure. You’re so…I don’t know. You mess me up. I don’t know how to act around you. What is it you like? What do you want?"
Arthur found this all very interesting, given that he felt the same way about her. He swallowed the cookie and faced her, noticing for the first time that their knees were touching. He felt very young.
"The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything is to make you laugh. I like - no. I love the sound of it. I love your voice. I love your smile… I want…" Arthur didn’t like saying these things. He felt like an idiot all over again. "I want you."
Ariadne covered her hand with the back of her mouth, stifling one of those God-forsaken giggles again.
"Arthur," she said, smiling broadly. "If you wanted that, you should have just said so." He raised an eyebrow. "I want you, too."
She kissed him. Arthur couldn’t understand, in all these months, why he hadn’t imagined kissing her more often. It had been the laugh-fixation. Her voice. The things she said. He was so caught up in the little things, he didn’t realize he wanted the big things, too. Ariadne straddled his waist, her fingers mussing up his already untidy hair. His hands ghosted at her sides, tripping over her back and dipping below her waistband.
"You know," she said, breaking away. Arthur fought to not make a noise of protest. "Eames and Yusuf can make me laugh a lot. But you make me smile every day."
"That was unbelievably cheesy."
"It’s the truth."
"Good enough." He kissed her again, lifting her up and settling her on his awkwardly placed bed. "This makes a lot of noise. I apologize." She laughed loud and honestly, throwing her head back and exposing her neck. He kissed her there, feeling the sound of her voice through her throat, almost tasting it.
All through the night, he kept his mouth there, or on her face or at her lips, so he could always hear her voice or the noises she made. He trapped them with his lips, keeping them with him. The way she said his name, the tiny pleas for just a little more. Arthur hardly recognized his own voice when he responded to her. He’d never said a name like that before, hadn’t made noises of want and need like that in a long time.
When he woke up, she was curled with her back against him. Arthur tried to move, but the bed gave a loud protest and she jerked awake.
"Sorry."
"You said that last night," she murmured, turning over and burying her face into his neck. "Do you feel better?" Arthur hummed against the top of her head. "Good. Me, too." She moved a little and the bed creaked again. Finally, she sat up, the sheets pulled across her chest. "Arthur. If this is going to happen again, I’m going to insist you get a new bed. Or you spend large quantities of time in my apartment." Arthur laughed this time and Ariadne bent down to his neck to catch the noise with her own lips.
"Want to know a secret?" she asked quietly. He nodded. "The one thing I’ve wanted most of all since we got back from LA was to make you laugh." Arthur looked at her curiously. "Isn’t that funny?"
It was, Arthur thought as he kissed her neck and made promises of pancakes for breakfast. It really was.