what have i to dread? 1/? [inception]

[weatheredlaw]

what have i to dread? 1/?
rated r - arthur/ariadne - inception fic
Sometimes there has to be a ledge to fall off of, when taking a leap of faith.



There was something about Phoenix that was trying to pick apart Ariadne's soul - she was sure of it. It could have been the excruciating August heat. 120 degrees it was, that Monday afternoon that Arthur called her for the first time in a year. It should have felt good, hearing his voice, knowing she would be seeing him soon. Instead, his cryptic message and tight words left her snappy and frustrated and the heat was the culprit.

"Are you...okay?"

"Okay? I don't know Arthur. I mean, it's nearly broiling outside, my shirt is soaked with sweat, I'm probably going to be fired next week because all I do is yell at people because I'm so fucking miserable that I hate everyone I work with and everything I do - oh! And you call me and I have to play twenty fucking questions just to figure out if I should take a plane, train or boat to wherever I need to be this week!"

Arthur was silent for a moment.

"I've bought you a ticket. A plane ticket. You just need to be at Sky Harbor on Friday at gate B-12. The plane leaves at two. You're going to Tokyo."

"Tokyo. Why?"

"Saito has something he'd like to discuss with us."

"Is it about Cobb?"

Something caught on the other line. Ariadne tried not to imagine what Cobb's name did to Arthur. Every other time it'd been mentioned around him, his body went rigid and there was an expression on his face that she couldn't quite identify. Shame, she once thought of calling it. Nostalgia, another time. Regret, usually. He drank to much that last time he'd visited her and spilled half his guts talking and the other half the next morning in her bathroom. She'd tried to pretend he hadn't cried the night before. That he hadn't begged her tell him what Cobb was like when she'd left Limbo. Every word he'd said.

"He said he wasn't going to stay."

"He stayed. What else did he say?"

"Nothing, Arthur. He told me to jump. 'There's the kick,' he said. That's all." Arthur's back shook. Ariadne placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Arthur. He stayed for Saito."

"No. No. He stayed...he stayed for her." Ariadne bit her lip. She didn't know the extent of Arthur's relationship with Mal when she'd been alive, just that he'd thought she was lovely. But she knew that his feelings on the Shade were not nearly as positive. She'd killed him a few dozen times, tortured him a few others. Ariadne tried not to think about it.

"Apparently he's made some sort of...breakthrough," Arthur said now, his voice strained on the other side of the line. "Our team was the last one Cobb worked with. Apparently that's important, though I can't understand how." Arthur cleared his throat. "I'll be there at the airport when you get there. You'll see me."

"Thanks for the call, I guess," Ariadne said, dreading whatever the trip had in store.

"See you Friday." Arthur hung up quickly. Ariadne held the phone to her ear for a while, listening to the dial-tone until the operator's grating voice came on and she hung up, feeling dizzy and out of breath. She got the shower she'd wanted to take all day, cold and sharp and biting on her pink, burnt skin. An Ohio-girl, out here in the desert, trying to make a living. Tomorrow, she'd hand in her notice. Ask to have her paycheck direct-deposited into her account and go to Tokyo Friday. She was still living off of what Saito paid her and the few odd extraction jobs that were local that Arthur or Eames tossed her way. She wasn't hurting.

Why she had a normal job was beyond her.

- - -

Ariadne slept for half the fifteen-hour flight and played Tetris on her laptop the other half, napping intermittently and having nightmares about falling and waking up in levels and layers, struggling to breathe and taking in gulp-fulls of icy river water before someone - Arthur - pressed air into her mouth. Gave it to her first and waited for her to collect herself. He scrambled up the rocks after her and she heard the panic in his voice when he asked what happened to Cobb. She saw the disbelief that flashed in his eyes when she assured him he'd be back.

Well. She lied.

The voice of the flight attendant announcing the beginnings of their descent into Tokyo jolted her awake, the noise of wind rushing past her ears fading slowly. It had been three years and she'd never dreamed of it before. Now, it's all she'd done since Arthur's call, when he'd dropped Tokyo into her lap and then proceeded to sound like he was going to have a fucking stroke if he had to talk about Cobb for one more second.

When the plane landed, Ariadne considered not getting off. Just sitting and letting it take her to wherever it was going next. Singapore, the translator had said. Instead, she found her legs moving and her arms lifting her duffle bag from its place in the bin above her seat, then lifting her laptop case onto her shoulder. Her feet moved her past the flight attendants and up, into the airport. She kept walking until she managed to find her way outside. Across the street, one hand covering his ear and the other holding a phone, yelling in loud, harsh Japanese, was Arthur.

Arthur, who'd kissed her in the dream-hotel and pretended it had never happened. He'd been in her dreams more than once, dreams that left her sweating and aching with want. He was thinner if it was possible, making his facial features sharp and almost plastic looking. Ariadne crossed the street and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, as if he'd known she'd been there all along, and instantly lifted her duffle bag from her hands, shaking his head when she protested. Hanging up, he offered her a tight-lipped smile and an arm.

"You cut your hair," she observed, noting the close-cropped style he now sported. Arthur nodded.

"You survived."

"I'm wearing fifteen hours of flight time, but I guess I'll be alright."

"You look lovely." The word fell on her like a weight. Ariadne wondered if that was just the way Arthur saw women. Delicate and glass-like. Mal had certainly seemed like that kind of woman in real life, from the photos Ariadne had seen. "Phoenix is good to you?"

"I hate it. I quit."

"Fantastic attitude you've picked up."

"It's hard to stay positive when it's a hundred and twenty degrees outside."

"Nothing is permanent."

"Doesn't matter."

"Well, you're already looking cheerful. Happy to see me?"

And then he winked.

Ariadne checked her totem before they caught a cab.

- - -

Saito had a series of houses in Japan, scattered across the islands, according to Arthur. He had two in Tokyo and had offered one for them to stay in. Yusuf had accepted at once, but Eames had opted for the Oak Hotel nearby, because, Arthur said, he hated having to owe anyone anything. "Eames thinks every offer of goodwill is really a trap. He wants to be able to bail before he owes Saito more than dinner."

"Seems fair."

"I almost did the same thing, but I can't leave you alone in that house."

"Yusuf'll be there."

"Yusuf will be out every night until five AM, drunk, high, and gambling everything he has away right and left. He'll make more than he'll ever spend, but he won't be much for protection."

"I can take care of myself."

"If had a dime for every time you've said that to me over the past three years-"

"Yeah, I get it. Rich or whatever." Arthur laughed (Ariadne checked her totem again) and shook his head, gripping the handle of the car door and jumping out when the cab came to a stop, lifting her duffle bag from the trunk and grabbing her door before she hardly had a chance to get out. "Thanks." He nodded and led the way up the walk, taking out a key strung on a red ribbon and opening the door. "Nice key chain."

"I figure it's all part of the ambiance."

The house was beautiful, but Ariadne had never been a fan of Eastern architecture. There was something about the classic columns of the west that fascinated her. Golden Ratios and statues and mythology, all woven together to make a history. Arthur set the key on the kitchen counter.

"It's two levels. The rooms are upstairs. Yours has the curtains still drawn. I think someone should be up to get everything read for you. Thirsty?" Arthur moved around the kitchen like he owned it, pulling out a wine bottle and pouring himself a glass.

"I'll have the same." Getting drunk seemed like a good idea, but passing out seemed like a better one. She sipped from the glass quietly and watched Arthur pace and make more phone calls. His clothes hung off of him at odd corners on his body, giving him the look of someone who had gone without food for several months. She imagined him hunched over a workbench, researching for hours, not stopping to eat, hardly drinking water, surviving off bar-fare and bad wine. It seemed like a very Arthur-like thing to do. Yusuf wandered into the kitchen, looking rather bleary-eyed and giving her a quick hug.

"Ah, there's wine."

"Here, finish this. I need a nap."

"Best not to sleep too long, we've got a meeting with Saito this afternoon."

"It's four already."

"I suspect Saito never sleeps. It's a theory Eames and I are looking into." Ariadne laughed and sighed, watching Arthur's pacing grow angrier as he began yelling in French now. Ariadne heard bits of his conversation - she'd let her French slide over the past couple of years, but there was a part of her that was still fairly fluent when she focused enough. Nearly four years in Paris had done that.

"They're children, not pets, you can't - no, I'm not their father, but I've been taking care of them for three years, it shouldn't be hard for you to do it for three weeks....they're with their grandparents, it's summer. Money, sir. I send them money. Ariadne tuned out. She didn't want to be downstairs anymore.

"I think I'll fix my room myself. I just want to lay down until Arthur's done." Yusuf pointed with his wine glass.

"Never stops talking on the phone. Always planning something, he is."

"He's a point man, what do you expect?"

"Nothing less." Ariadne gave Yusuf a final smile before grabbing her bag and stealing up the stairs, careful not to catch Arthur's gaze. She didn't need him following her right now - what she needed was some solitude.

The room was grand and open, with bay windows opening to a small balcony, sealed away by cream-colored curtains with beautiful blue stitching. She left them shut while she unzipped her bag and dug around for her Advil to fight off the impending post-flight migraine she was sure to have soon. No sooner had she laid down, an arm thrown across her eyes, when a soft tapping came from her doorway. "What?" she snapped.

"I hate to disturb your slumber, m'lady, but we have an appointment with Saito." When Ariadne opened her eyes, a smirking Arthur was standing above her.

"You're smiling a lot. Who are you and what have you done with Arthur?" He laughed for the third time that day and shook his head, kneeling down very close to her face.

"I had some time off."

"You lost weight. Doesn't seem like a very productive vacation." Arthur's face darkened and he stood quickly. Ariadne sat up in bed.

"I didn't say it was a vacation." He cleared his throat. "If you're ready, our car is waiting outside."

- - -

"You have to hand it to Saito," Yusuf said a while later as they watched their car drive off. "He is an excellent host." Arthur nodded lazily and gave a great sigh. The back of the car had been spacious and opulent. Yusuf immediately took advantage of the free alcohol and flipped through the TV channels, disappointed at the selection. Arthur had sat on the seat across from them, staring out the window and checking his phone periodically. Ariadne ignored both of them and wondered when it would be time to go home. She was getting sick of everyone already.

Arthur held the door open for the both of them and followed closely behind, placing an oddly protective hand over the small of her back. "I don't trust this," he whispered. "So if we have to run-"

"For once in your life, Arthur, could you just not be suspicious?"

"Once in my life I wasn't. I'd rather not talk about the consequences." He took his hand from her back, the cool air chilling her after it was gone.

It seemed as though everyone Ariadne had worked with had stopped eating over the past three years. Eames was bonier than she remembered and Saito, when he wrapped a quick arm around her, seemed to be hanging in his own body, rather than wearing his skin at all. It was an odd sensation, but when she caught sight of herself in a window, she noted with some chagrin that she, too, had grown thinner over the years. There was something that had happened, since that day they separated in the airport, that lived in her like a bad cough. She felt it in every cell.

Saito gestured to a large, lacquered table and sat. Ariadne quickly followed suit, taking a place next to Arthur. She felt better next to him, no matter if he was angry with her or not.

"I'm glad you could join me," Saito began slowly, nodding at a maid as she began serving tea. "The past three years, I've put a lot of money into researching ways to help Mr. Cobb, and into keeping him alive. I have regretted not a single bit of it." He took a sip of his tea, wincing at the heat. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I've asked you to come to Japan."

"'Wondering' is a nice way of putting it," Eames said dryly, dropping two heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and stirring it loudly. "Been wondering since I bought my bloody ticket over here." He dropped the spoon onto the table. Saito ignored most of what he said, nodding absentmindedly. Ariadne took a tentative sip of her own tea, wishing she would have told Arthur to go fuck himself and gone to work the next morning. This was quickly becoming more than she'd bargained for.

"I'd like to bring Cobb out of Limbo." Next to her, Arthur stiffened. His body moved forward as if to stand, but Ariadne grabbed his elbow. Arthur became a ticking time bomb when Cobb was brought up. He didn't look at her, but instead relaxed a bit, thought his body was still drawn tight as a string. Saito, sensing Arthur's shifting demeanor, turned to him. "Arthur, is there something you'd like to say?"

"I told you three years ago I had a problem with you keeping him alive this long. In there, in his mind? It's not real. You've been letting him dream lifetime after lifetime. There's no telling how slowly or quickly time is passing for him down there. You don't know what's happening to him and you can never know, no matter how much money you spend on observing him. It won't matter if we wake up and he's a blubbering mess for the rest of his life, if you could even call it that." His body shook with rage. "This is a terrible idea. I'm sorry we've wasted your time." Arthur made a move to get up again, but Saito held up a hand. To his credit, he was a very patient man.

"I understand your position, Arthur. I understood it three years ago and I know what you're saying now. But I have something I think you might like to see." He stood. Arthur let go of Ariadne's hand under the table and followed Saito from the room.

"Good show, yeah?" Eames whispered, giving her a wink.

Ahead of them, Saito had a butler pull aside an adjoining wall in the next room. It looked like a hospital room, save for the lacquered wood furniture and gold-patterned walls and paintings. In the center of the room, looking just like he had when Ariadne had thrown back one last glance before getting off the plane, was Cobb. The man who'd brought her into this world, who'd given her Arthur and dreaming and paradoxes and kicks - her heart quickened still when she remembered her first shared dream, and her throat threatened to close up when she remembered all the work he'd done to get back to his children, only to have it all go to waste.

"Cobb," she whispered. She grabbed Arthur's hand. He body was rigid and cold, but his palm was sweating and his fingers began to shake. Ariadne tried to catch his gaze, but his eyes were far away, not really focusing on Cobb, but taking in all the things that surrounded him, keeping him alive.

"This is what you've been doing?" Saito nodded. Arthur cleared his throat. "What did you want to show me?" Smiling, Saito tapped a machine on Cobb's left side, closest to them.

"This measures brain waves," he said.

"So?" Eames asked. "What's so great about it?"

"His brain activity has been off the charts for months now. At first we thought it was just the machine. We went through three before we realized that he was in there." Arthur's eyes flashed toward Saito and back to the machine. "He's aware and he's alive and I think that now is the time to bring him back."

"Mr. Saito, I understand it was easy for you to leave Limbo, but Cobb's been there for three years. There's no telling what he's created."

"But the activity, it-"

"I know what it means. If anyone else is willing to be a part of this, then go ahead. But I need some time to think about it." Ariadne looked down. Arthur had let go of her had, but she didn't know when. He turned now and began to walk briskly from the room. Ariadne felt sick and rushed after Arthur, unable to look at Cobb a single second longer. Yusuf did not follow her. She heard him say something to Eames about drinks, but it didn't matter - she was out the door and bounding down the stairs to the car after Arthur. The door shut behind her and Arthur told the driver to take them home, his voice shaking and his entire body curved forward toward the seat in front of them. Ariadne rested her hand on his back, feeling a tremor pass under her hand. A second later he sat up and stared straight ahead. Somewhere in his jacket, his phone buzzed, but he didn't react. When they got to the house, Arthur didn't hold open any doors or offer her any courtesy other than pulling two glassed from the counter and filling them with bourbon.

"I don't know about you," he said, downing his glass. "But getting loaded seems like a pretty fantastic idea." Carefully, he refilled his glass and handed over hers. "Cheers."

"Arthur, this isn't-"

"A good idea? I know. It's terrible. Here's how much I care." He downed his second glass and refilled it again. "You know, I knew that this was what this trip was about. I knew. And I came here anyway. I dragged you into this mess and Eames and Yusuf. And for what? To listen to Saito yap on and on about fucking pulling Cobb out of Limbo. Do you have any idea how hard that actually is? To convince someone who is so steeped in their own reality that it's all a dream? That all they have to do is kill themselves and they'll wake up?" Ariadne didn't answer, instead choosing the finish off the bourbon in her own glass with a grimace. When she looked down, Arthur was filling it again.

"You think it can't be done?"

"I know it can. But it's a slow and painful process. It can take months. You have to constantly drop into their reality. And if you're head isn't screwed on right, you can lose yourself just as easily."

"How do you know? How do you know so much about it?"

"Because I've done it. I've done it thirty-seven times, actually." Arthur was a mess. Ariadne hated his hair now. He looked like a cancer patient, with his gaunt face and bony body and near-shaven head. It made her stomach churn. It made her think of her grandfather.

"When?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"After the Fischer job. Before the Fischer job. It's...a bit of a specialty of mine, really. I started after Mal died and Cobb was trying to stay under the radar. We only took jobs where cash could be handed over under the table, where we could use fake ID's and stay relatively nameless otherwise. But those were few and far between. Half the extraction business was itching for that reward on Cobb's head, so we had to split up a lot. After it was pretty clear that I didn't know where Cobb was hiding, people started hiring me again." He paused to shift around the bottles on the drink cart in the living room, selecting a bottle of gin and mixing himself a gin and tonic. He made one for Ariadne, too, but she didn't touch it.

"The second job I got, they said it might be impossible. It was a challenge, you see. They wanted me, but they wanted to see if I was game enough. If I could do the research right and pull off something like this."

"They wanted you to pull someone out of Limbo."

"It was a pretty well known extractor. Gordon, I think he name was. He'd been asleep for weeks. No one knew a lot about Limbo then. The things Cobb and Mal had been doing were all pretty new, and this was hardly a year after she'd died. But they knew enough to know that time slows down, slower than you'd think. What they didn't understand was the malleability of Limbo. That it became whatever reality you wanted it to be after a while. Sometimes, decades could become eon. If you could actually learn to manipulate Limbo, you could make it into whatever you wanted, whenever time you wanted. Gordon was suspended in his youth, his mid-twenties. Reliving them, trying to fix his mistakes. It was hell and it took three weeks of constant dropping. Almost every day I went into his world. When he woke up, he was addled for about a week, but his actual reality set it pretty quickly." The last few sentences were low and mumbled. Arthur had settled in an arm chair and was talking into his hands, his body loose now, the empty gin and tonic glass on the floor.

Ariadne remembered what he'd been like, the night he'd visited her in Paris and drank all her wine and cried at her table. Stumbling a little from two glasses of bourbon, she kneeled down beside him to hear better and to make sure he hadn't passed out.

"Did it always work?"

"Of course not," he muttered. "Five times. I lost five people. Three suicides, two in the nut house. I think they're dead, too. I did my best. I've never lost myself and that's more important, really. These stupid assholes can waste away in Limbo for all I care. But I need my sanity. I need to stay. Cobb always told me to never let myself drop or fall or fail because I could lose it. That thread. That fucking thread. It's a thread, you know. You would. You're Ariadne. You've got...you've got thread. A spool of it, right? I know the story."

"Arthur-"

"Don't. Don't say Arthur or ask me anymore questions about it. I'm...I'm done. I'm done now."

"You did this thirty-seven times," she said, pressing on. "Why not again? Why not for him?"

"Because I failed five times. I don't want to risk failing again."

"And if you do it? If he wakes up and he can go home, to James and Phillipa. What then? What will that be?"

Arthur finally looked at her, his eyes soft and the shadows under them less pronounced in the dim lamplight. Ariadne leaned forward, pressing into his knees and moving her hand as if to brush the hair he didn't have from his face. He didn't answer her. Instead, Arthur leaned forward, kissing her in a rush of pain and liquor and want. Ariadne pushed apart his knees and move closer, wedging herself between his thighs. It happened quickly, one swift move after another. Arthur pulled her closer and leaned back into the armchair, forcing her into his lap. Her mouth didn't leave his, set there like hooks in their lips, tied and twisted together. There was teeth and salt because Arthur was crying. Ariadne trembled, not really knowing how to deal with this. This Arthur. This side. It was terrifying and it was beautiful.

"I want you," he murmured, breaking the silence. "I have. For a long time - Jesus Christ," he groaned as she ground her hips into his. Ariadne tipped her head back and let him kiss her neck and her collarbone. He pulled her sweater over her head, revealing her chest and unhooking her bra. Annoyed at being the only one exposed, Ariadne nearly tore his belt apart undoing it and dipped her hand below his waistband, wrapping her arm around his cock and pulling his head closer to her breasts. She hadn't had enough alcohol not to know what she was doing. She was acutely aware of every sensation, every touch and taste and sound. Arthur tipped her back and they tumbled from the chair, landing roughly on the Persian rug covering the floor. But nothing stopped. There was a constant fluidity to their movements, as if a train of thought had manifested itself into action and could not be stopped. Arthur slid the rest of her clothes off slowly as she kicked at his pants with her heels and desperately pulled off his tie and shirt. He could take his sweet time, but not her. Her body shook with the need of him, of something - it'd been ages since she'd been touched by anyone, her body feeling more awake now than it had in the three years since she'd first met Arthur.

He pushed into her, each thrust charged and purposeful, until her legs wrapped around his waist began to ache and tremble and the carpet burned her back. Her skin was on fire, all over, and she reacted louder than she thought she might when Arthur's fingers expertly flew over her clit, sending a cooling rush through her body as her muscles tensed.

"Arthur," she breathed, her voice hoarse. "Arthur, I-" He pulled out and pressed his thumb, hard, at her center and she came, gripping his arm. Arthur finished, coming next to her on Saito's rug, his groan muffled against her chest. They were silent for a while, with Arthur panting into her skin and Ariadne absentmindedly tracing circles on his shoulder with her thumb. She'd almost thought he'd fallen asleep when he asked her if she wanted to go to bed with him.

"Yeah," she murmured, more tired than she realized. Arthur lifted himself up, helping her gather her clothes. He draped his shirt over her shoulders and she laughed. "Protecting my modesty?" she teased, pulling it on.

"I'm a gentleman, at heart. You know, deep down." He tugged on his pants and led her up the stairs. Ariadne threaded her fingers through his, feeling her heart skip when he squeezed her hand. His own room was smaller than hers, with darker curtains and a deep, richly colored wooden armoire in the corner, filled with three or four suits and a long jacket. Arthur collapsed onto his bed and pulled her down with him. She rolled over and curled into his side, feeling the fifteen hours of flight finally begin to take its toll.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked quietly.

"Spiders," Arthur said simply. "I am terrified of spiders."

"Don't be a smart ass. I mean about Cobb." Arthur's face darkened. He looked past her, closing his eyes.

"I've taken care of James and Phillipa for three years," he finally said. "I've always thought that he might be able to make it back, but I've told them a hundred times that he's not." He paused. "What if I'm right? What if we do this and I'm actually right?" He finally looked right at her. "What if they lose him forever?"

Ariadne leaned her head on his chest and said nothing for a while. Quietly, before she felt herself drift off to sleep, listening to Arthur's breath even out beneath her, she murmured, "And what if you're wrong?"

She didn't know if he heard her, but he sighed deeply after she said it and that was answer enough.