Arthur is leaning casually against one of the pillars in the pseudo-courtyard, trying not to draw too much attention to himself. Of course, being an impeccably well-dressed man who appears to be too old to be a student but too young to be a professor isn't helping matters much. (Neither is being armed.)
"I apologize for the misconception." Arthur says, not sounding very apologetic at all.
Ariadne stares at him for a moment, at a loss for how to respond to that. She'd forgotten how terse he tends to be, and she continues to fidget for a second before gesturing at the world in general, the motion somehow meant to indicate the direction of the "place with really good sandwiches".
"So, you want to... walk? It's only a block from here, and it shouldn't be too crowded," she says, glancing away to wave as a student passes with a "Hey, Ariadne!" She's grateful for the distraction--she hasn't ever really had the time or presence of mind to look at--and pay attention to--Arthur, and she's kind of wishing that now wasn't the first (well, second, if she counts the few minutes she'd had to watch him prep the room in the hotel a few weeks ago) time she's been so painfully aware of how... attractive he is.
Arthur nods, pushing off the pillar with casual grace. He seems oblivious to the awkwardness, although that may be because he's busy scanning the crowd for anyone even vaguely suspicious. Old habits die hard, and Arthur has always been rather paranoid.
"That sounds fine." he says, glancing over at Ariadne. "Lead the way?" Really, he'd have met her there... if he had any clue which cafe she was talking about.
Smiling, she pads off across the pseudo-courtyard, leading him through a gate and onto the sidewalk. Unfortunately, Ariadne does not have Arthur's miraculous skill for ignoring awkwardness, so she is forced to suffer the stretching silence with swirling thoughts comprised mostly of "Oh my GOD, whyyy, say somethiiing, don't hate meee".
After about two minutes of what could conceivably pass for a comfortable silence to anyone not in the throes of "Holy Shit, I Accidentally Asked Arthur Out", she starts tapping her hands on her thighs, glancing at him intermittently. Abruptly, she latches on conversation and clings to it like a homeless schizophrenic clings to hubcaps.
"What do you do in your free time? Every time I've seen you, you've been doing something dream-related," she asks, editing her walking pattern so she can look up at him while still maintaining an essentially straight trajectory.
The sudden start to the conversation doesn't surprise Arthur in the slightest, but his companion's choice of topics does. Of all the questions Arthur expected Ariadne to ask in an attempt to forestall any potential awkwardness-- and he expected her to ask many, many questions indeed-- that particular question was not one that he had anticipated. He glances over (and down) at Ariadne, looking as close to mildly stunned as he ever does.
"I read, for the most part." he says after a brief hesitation, deciding that now would be a bad time to mention that he also shoots a lot of paper targets in his spare time.
She smiles and laughs once, more a mirthful puff of breath than a laugh, really.
"I guess that shouldn't surprise me," she says, though she does sound vaguely surprised--at least in that she had expected something more along the lines of "I shoot things" or "I practice thinking on my feet", or at least "I polish my awesomeness". Reading, though--that makes a lot more sense, especially considering his... sesquipedalian vocabulary.
He probably reads Plato or Kierkegaard, she thinks, pausing to check both ways this time before crossing the street. Third time's a charm--she makes it across without any near death experiences in the form of buses or minivans. She turns around to look at him head-on for a moment, turning the move into an odd little twirl on her feet as she turns an inward corner onto a fresh sidewalk, hands slipping into her back pockets.
"You sure you don't build rocket ships or, you know, fight crime?" She flashes a grin. "I can see you being a vigilante--The Point Man, Mr. Info-Dump, Hero of the People."
Arthur smiles quietly to himself as he watches Ariadne look both ways before crossing, although it's gone almost as soon as it appeared. Obviously Ariadne had been paying attention to his voicemails... and even though he wouldn't have let her walk into oncoming traffic, it's nice to know that she's capable of not-dying perfectly well on her own.
"I've always been more of a sidekick than the hero, and Cobb's hardly the vigilante type." he says, deadpan as usual.
"Ah, good point. That'd be a personality conflict," she says, smirking to herself, trying to imagine Dom saving the day. Or maybe she's just trying to imagine him in spandex--both are highly amusing images.
She slows down when the restaurant comes into view, and she would be chewing her lip if she were privy to the habit. This is a bad idea on all conceivable levels, and she glances at him briefly.
"You know, you don't have to--I mean, I usually just... grab a sandwich and go, you know? But, I mean, you're already here, I guess, but, you know, you don't have to--"
What she means is "Please don't be having lunch with me because I called you and you feel weirdly obligated or something, because that would suck. You're totally free to walk away--I totally wasn't fishing for a lunch date, anyway."
"It's fine, Ariadne." Arthur says, easily keeping pace with the shorter woman as she slows down. He's clearly become better at turning Ariadne-speak back into English over the past couple of weeks, as he understands the gist of her nervous chatter without much trouble. And although she might not have been fishing for a lunch date, Arthur is nothing if not good at improvising.(Besides, he needs to spend some time out of his apartment. This pseudo-date was just a convenient excuse.)
"Table for two, please." he says to the hostess, in the exact same tone of voice he used with Ariadne: dry, polite, and completely unindicative of his mental state.
Her mouth twists into some strange combination of a grimace and a smirk as she drifts behind Arthur and the hostess, contemplating just dying now and getting it over with.
This is the dumbest idea either of us has had in years, she thinks, discounting the fact that she has no way of knowing if Arthur has made a dumber decision than this recently, theirs being a recent relationsh--friendsh--...acquaintance. Yes. Dumb. This is very, very dumb.
"Sandwiches!" Her enthusiasm is abrupt as she picks one of the menus off the table, quite grateful for a reason to not pay attention to him for the moment. When their waitress comes by to introduce herself and generally be friendly, she orders coffee with equivalent enthusiasm.
As usual, Arthur appears to be completely impervious to the awkwardness. Ariadne's sudden enthusiasm for sandwiches is a bit baffling, although that bafflement quickly turns into outright confusion after Ariadne orders two coffees just before the waitress leaves.
Arthur looks up from his menu and across the table to Ariadne, blinking in consternation. "... did you order us coffee?"
She looks up from her menu, blinking, head too full of different kinds of bread to grasp his question for several seconds.
"Uhm... I don--oh, I did, didn't I?" She pauses, staring after the waitress, trying to figure out if ordering two coffees is a bad thing. Everyone likes coffee!
"I don't drink coffee." Arthur says matter-of-factly. He looks back down at his menu, trying to decide what to order... and hoping that will be enough explanation for Ariadne.
Surely she must have misheard--Ariadne has ever suffered the delusion that coffee is the elixir of the gods, and that it is consequently impossible to not drink, as that would be akin to not breathing.
Ariadne gives him a look that clearly questions his sanity before she reevaluates and settles for surprise in the form of lifted eyebrows.
"Is it the caffeine, or do you just... not like it?" Tch, as if that were possible. She's betting it's the caffeine--he seems like the kind to avoid vices like that. Maybe.
Arthur shrugs slightly, still studying the menu intently. "I'll drink it if I have to in order to stay awake, but I've never liked the taste. I don't drink tea or soda, either." And that might be the longest string of words in a row Arthur's said all day. ... actually, that is almost assuredly the longest string of words in a row he's said all day.
She blinks. Evidently, she is having lunch with a subhuman. She has to fight the powerful urge to stab him with her fork.
That's an exaggeration, though--she's simply struck with an overwhelming rush of lack of understanding. It's kind of sad, because she doesn't even realize that he just strung more than five words together successively.
"Huh. That's weird. Well, no, it's not weird, it's just, I don't think I've really met someone who didn't have a questionable addiction to coffee. Or, no, I probably have, I just haven't talked about it with them." She pauses, shifting in her seat to cross her legs. It occurs to her that it will be very awkward when the waitress returns with two cups of coffee. "I guess I should have asked first--sorry. Force of habit."
"I apologize for the misconception." Arthur says, not sounding very apologetic at all.
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"So, you want to... walk? It's only a block from here, and it shouldn't be too crowded," she says, glancing away to wave as a student passes with a "Hey, Ariadne!" She's grateful for the distraction--she hasn't ever really had the time or presence of mind to look at--and pay attention to--Arthur, and she's kind of wishing that now wasn't the first (well, second, if she counts the few minutes she'd had to watch him prep the room in the hotel a few weeks ago) time she's been so painfully aware of how... attractive he is.
This is sure to be rife with awkwardness.
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"That sounds fine." he says, glancing over at Ariadne. "Lead the way?" Really, he'd have met her there... if he had any clue which cafe she was talking about.
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After about two minutes of what could conceivably pass for a comfortable silence to anyone not in the throes of "Holy Shit, I Accidentally Asked Arthur Out", she starts tapping her hands on her thighs, glancing at him intermittently. Abruptly, she latches on conversation and clings to it like a homeless schizophrenic clings to hubcaps.
"What do you do in your free time? Every time I've seen you, you've been doing something dream-related," she asks, editing her walking pattern so she can look up at him while still maintaining an essentially straight trajectory.
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"I read, for the most part." he says after a brief hesitation, deciding that now would be a bad time to mention that he also shoots a lot of paper targets in his spare time.
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"I guess that shouldn't surprise me," she says, though she does sound vaguely surprised--at least in that she had expected something more along the lines of "I shoot things" or "I practice thinking on my feet", or at least "I polish my awesomeness". Reading, though--that makes a lot more sense, especially considering his... sesquipedalian vocabulary.
He probably reads Plato or Kierkegaard, she thinks, pausing to check both ways this time before crossing the street. Third time's a charm--she makes it across without any near death experiences in the form of buses or minivans. She turns around to look at him head-on for a moment, turning the move into an odd little twirl on her feet as she turns an inward corner onto a fresh sidewalk, hands slipping into her back pockets.
"You sure you don't build rocket ships or, you know, fight crime?" She flashes a grin. "I can see you being a vigilante--The Point Man, Mr. Info-Dump, Hero of the People."
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"I've always been more of a sidekick than the hero, and Cobb's hardly the vigilante type." he says, deadpan as usual.
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She slows down when the restaurant comes into view, and she would be chewing her lip if she were privy to the habit. This is a bad idea on all conceivable levels, and she glances at him briefly.
"You know, you don't have to--I mean, I usually just... grab a sandwich and go, you know? But, I mean, you're already here, I guess, but, you know, you don't have to--"
What she means is "Please don't be having lunch with me because I called you and you feel weirdly obligated or something, because that would suck. You're totally free to walk away--I totally wasn't fishing for a lunch date, anyway."
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"Table for two, please." he says to the hostess, in the exact same tone of voice he used with Ariadne: dry, polite, and completely unindicative of his mental state.
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This is the dumbest idea either of us has had in years, she thinks, discounting the fact that she has no way of knowing if Arthur has made a dumber decision than this recently, theirs being a recent relationsh--friendsh--...acquaintance. Yes. Dumb. This is very, very dumb.
"Sandwiches!" Her enthusiasm is abrupt as she picks one of the menus off the table, quite grateful for a reason to not pay attention to him for the moment. When their waitress comes by to introduce herself and generally be friendly, she orders coffee with equivalent enthusiasm.
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Arthur looks up from his menu and across the table to Ariadne, blinking in consternation. "... did you order us coffee?"
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"Uhm... I don--oh, I did, didn't I?" She pauses, staring after the waitress, trying to figure out if ordering two coffees is a bad thing. Everyone likes coffee!
"Why?"
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He has a sneaking feeling it won't be.
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Ariadne gives him a look that clearly questions his sanity before she reevaluates and settles for surprise in the form of lifted eyebrows.
"Is it the caffeine, or do you just... not like it?" Tch, as if that were possible. She's betting it's the caffeine--he seems like the kind to avoid vices like that. Maybe.
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That's an exaggeration, though--she's simply struck with an overwhelming rush of lack of understanding. It's kind of sad, because she doesn't even realize that he just strung more than five words together successively.
"Huh. That's weird. Well, no, it's not weird, it's just, I don't think I've really met someone who didn't have a questionable addiction to coffee. Or, no, I probably have, I just haven't talked about it with them." She pauses, shifting in her seat to cross her legs. It occurs to her that it will be very awkward when the waitress returns with two cups of coffee. "I guess I should have asked first--sorry. Force of habit."
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