The Trembling Of The Migratory Birds - Part 15: Burning Bridges (ctd.)
Burning Bridges (ctd.)
Arthur looks at the picture in the newly acquired passports and fights a sigh. The picture Eames' contact in the MI-6 found of him is eight years old and right before it had been taken, he'd come from the hairdresser in order to have a truly spectacular neon-green Mohawk shorn off. Of course Eames' contact would find exactly that picture and use it for the new passport.
They're hiding in a currently empty room in a run-down Kommunalka, getting ready for the journey on the train. Eames is out getting them a fresh set of clothes. Getting ready also means that Arthur has to resemble the kid in the picture.
He clenches his right hand around the electric razor, switches it on and guides it up to his forehead, rests it there for a moment and feels it buzzing against his skin. It's a stupid thing to hesitate. It's just hair, it'll grow back. Nevertheless, he lets the razor sink. Just a little longer. There are things he needs to consider, lists he needs to tick off, even if they're just in his head.
Cut hair, change clothes, get supplies, cover tracks, arrange for a passage across the Chinese border, find a way to contact Saito. He clamps down on the reaction that's trying to surface when he thinks about what Eames' contact had said. Not now. He needs more lists. Making lists to tick off usually calms him.
Baby-wipes, hand sanitiser, guns, bottled water, taser, toilet paper, ammunition, books, a way to smuggle the PASIV case on board the train and not have it stolen...
It's no use. The usual tactic doesn't work, he's too distracted by what happened just an hour ago. He needs to wrap his head around the fact that he let Eames hand over the SFNX program to a woman he says he trusts with his life, but whom Arthur has no reason to trust in at all. Arthur still has the worst feeling in the world about this.
Ariadne, who's been out to use the communal restrooms, walks back in the room, sees him and stops in her tracks, horrified. "What are you - " She takes in the razor and walks over to him. "Arthur, no."
He gives her a lopsided smile, grateful for the distraction. "It's necessary," he says. A little more gentle, he adds, "It'll grow back."
"But - " she doesn't finish, just reaches up and runs both her hands through his hair, reverently, as though she's trying to commit the feel of it to memory.
Arthur leans into her touch and closes his eyes. He hasn't shown her her new passport yet and isn't proud to think that he fears the moment when he will. "You're not making this any easier."
"Good," she replies and kisses him. "I don't mean to."
It's the first time they've kissed in what feels like days and Arthur finds himself reacting, opening up to her tongue and hands, a thirsting man finding a well. He's missed the feel of her skin, her scent, her warmth. It's so easy to get lost in her.
As he pulls her close and trails kisses along her neck, tracing hints of perfume, his mind wanders. Sometimes, Arthur thinks that Ariadne’s the one thing left that's bright and untainted by the life they lead. But he reminds himself that this isn't true. And, most of all, that she's not as innocent as her face appears. It's what draws him to her; the layers, the competence, the quick wit. The heady blend of freshman features and very adult humour and tastes.
He needs her as much as he needs Eames, for different reasons. Eames has known him for longer, they have a history, but Ariadne sees something in him Eames no longer does, if only because he's known Arthur for too long. She touches upon the hollow spaces inside him and he finds himself wanting to crawl inside her and let her damn well take care of him. He knows she could be a leader, in her own way. It wouldn't be smooth at first, but she'd grow into it. Arthur knows without a doubt that, given a few years, Ariadne will be at the top of the dreamshare business. But not now. Now she's what keeps him sane and he vows to make sure she's safe.
Arthur nuzzles the sensitive spot at the base of her neck with a suppressed sigh, murmuring under his breath, kissing the promise into her skin, and she shudders as his breath trails down her neck. She buries her hands in his hair to pull him closer. There's something in her scent and posture that changes in those few split-seconds and he tenses, feels the mood-swing, and wishes he'd kept his mouth shut.
"Ariadne - " he tries between kisses when she starts to glide her hands under his shirt.
"Don't," she whispers. It's a sharp, desperate plea. Her eyes are dark, both determined and scared. "Don't try to protect me. Don't tell me things will be all right when they won't be. After all this, I want one thing from you: honesty. Dish it. I can handle it."
"Can you?" he asks, unable to stop the question. "If I tell you that you'll have to shoot someone, could you do it?"
"I shot Mal."
"In a dream."
"The guys in the internet café in Finland."
"Wounded, not killed."
She pushes against his chest, forcefully, creating a space between them. "What are you saying?" she asks. "That I'm not fit for this life? Not ready for it? Are you treating me like Eames' precious Suz did?"
He makes to answer, but she interrupts him before he has the chance. "Newsflash, Arthur: I know my shortcomings. But I'm learning on the way. You stopped treating me like a novice when we got to Finland. Don't start again now. I can do this."
"I know." He hopes she understands that wanting to keep her safe doesn't equal doubting her abilities. If there's one thing he has never doubted, it's her ability to adapt.
She relaxes a little as his statement sinks in. Crisis averted. For the moment.
"So now what?"
"Would you like to do the honours?" Arthur asks, nodding toward the razor.
Ariadne shakes her head. "I hate committing sacrilege."
Arthur twitches a grin, reaches for the razor and gets to work, his eyes never leaving Ariadne's. He works by feel, not with the help of the crude, dull mirror in the room. The more of his hair falls, the harder Ariadne bites her lip, and looks torn between laughter and tears. But there's more there. Something darker. Something that seems to strengthen her resolve.
Once it's all gone, Arthur steps out of the piles of hair on the floor, brushes it off his shoulders. He can't help but think that it looks like somebody has just been shearing a black sheep. It's quiet in the room now that the buzzing sounds of the razor is gone, and all Arthur hears is Ariadne's breathing and the faraway noise of somebody clinking pots together in the kitchen of the Kommunalka.
"Well?" Arthur asks, because damn it, he never pretended he wasn't a little vain. He runs a hand over his head, using Ariadne as a mirror instead of the actual one.
"Like you came straight out of a Solzhenitzyn novel," she comments, dryly.
Arthur gives her the middle finger.
"The things you do when you're on the run." Her teasing mood fades there and then. She steps closer, brushes some leftover hair off Arthur's shoulders and rests her hands there, thumbs gliding along the back of his neck into the short stubble on his head. Goosebumps skitter down Arthur's arms. It takes her a while to look him in the eye and ask the question that he knows has been formulating on the tip of her tongue. "We might not make it, right?"
Arthur takes a breath, raises his hands and frames her face with them. "I can't promise it." There. She wanted honesty. It's both a relief and a punch to the gut to say it out loud.
Ariadne searches his eyes, holds his gaze and the raw display of emotions scares Arthur. Determination, fear, anger, stubbornness, helplessness, all of it and more. He's not proud to say he's relieved when she looks away.
"Thank you," she says eventually.
He doesn't ask what she means, but is a bit surprised when she kisses him again, deep and dirty.
"What are you - " he starts and moves away.
"We're running for our damn lives," she frames the back of his head with her hands and yanks him against her with no gentleness whatsoever, her breasts pressing against his chest, "we haven't had sex since Finland. If I die, I don't want to get to heaven sexually frustrated, you hear me?"
It's delivered with such outraged earnestness that Arthur can't help but laugh, even if the underlying implication twists his stomach, even if his body reacts to her proximity. "You think you'll get to heaven?"
"Hell will have its hands full with you and Eames," she informs him with a grin that doesn't reach her eyes.
"But you know hell's fondness for young women."
"Virgins. For sacrifices."
"And you're - "
She pushes against his chest, her eyes narrowed. It's a look usually reserved for Eames, but there's more, a deeper meaning. No, she's not the same woman he met in Paris. Hasn't been for a while.
"Definitely not one," he finishes, kissing her again. Their back and forth is easy, but it's hollow, lacking the zing to make it alive, make it fun. It has an edge it didn't have before. Arthur hates seeing her like this. So he kisses her instead, trying to block out the vision.
She's much more aggressive now, and he reads the despair behind her actions, it's near enough to make him lose his fucking erection, and wouldn't Eames laugh if he could see this?
"Focus, damn it," Ariadne commands and grabs him through his pants, massages him expertly enough to send Arthur cross-eyed. "Don't think about anything else now." The 'make me forget' hangs heavy in the air even if it's not spoken.
Her grip on him is too tight, he almost hisses in pain, so he turns the page, pushes her up against the wall, hikes up her skirt, and spreads her legs. He sinks to his knees in front of her and hears rather than sees her rest her head against the wall with a hollow plonk. Arthur goes to work ruthlessly, lips and tongue and teeth working her until her legs start to shake and only then does he push his index finger into her. She whimpers, spreads her legs wider. Her scent surrounds him. Her taste is sharp on his tongue, and, oh, yes, this is working. For both of them. She's hot and tight and nowhere near wet enough to make this painless, but Ariadne doesn't seem to care, so he doesn't ask.
The blood rushes in his ears loud enough to make him miss what she's saying until he pulls back for a breath. "More," she whispers in a harsh pant. "More."
He inserts a second finger, circles his tongue around the most sensitive part of her clit - he's done his damn research and knows where she reacts the most - and right on cue, she bucks against him; he adds a third, twists and curls the fingers just as he presses his tongue hard and flat against her clit and she gasps, loud, clenches around him tight enough to make his fingers hurt. Her hands are back on his head, sliding over his shorn hair, she knows his damn weak spot too and he knows she wants to grab fistfuls that aren't there. She pushes his face against her crotch, palms hot on his scalp instead, as she rides out the waves of her orgasm with a suppressed keening noise at the back of her throat.
Arthur eases back when breathing becomes an issue and wipes his mouth with his left hand. He sees a bruise beginning to blossom on Ariadne's hip where he's held onto her and the knowledge that Eames will see it is strangely exhilarating.
He's lost in the memory of Seinäjoki for a few seconds, flashing back to hours and hours of learning to know each other's bodies, his dick twitching. He's distracted long enough for him to wonder where the hell Ariadne got the condom she's holding toward him.
It doesn't matter, though. He gets up from his knees, unzips and drops his pants around his feet, shuffles closer with an awkward move and kisses her, hard and deep. "Move," she urges into his mouth. "Move, move, move."
At this point, Arthur doesn't need to be told twice. He rolls on the condom, lifts her ass, wraps her legs around his waist and slides into her with a groan as her body welcomes him. Arthur looks at Ariadne for just a moment; her eyes open and dark enough to swallow him whole. He gives himself and her the space of a breath to adjust before he fucks her hard and fast, their bodies slapping together obscenely loud. The empty bookshelf on the wall beside them rattles.
It's over embarrassingly fast; he comes with a muted shout when she runs a fingernail over his nipple, sensitive even through his shirt. He leans against her afterward, forehead resting against her collarbone, his legs trembling as he slides back out of her.
He guides her back down to the ground and from the way she moves, he can tell that he came before she could for a second time. Ariadne kisses him, shakes her head. "Thank you."
Once they pull their clothes back on, she smoothes her hand over his buzz cut for a little while longer, fingertips rasping over the short stubble, and tracing his skull as though getting used to the feel of it. Sparks of awareness skitter over his skin, little aftershocks.
"I hate this," she murmurs. "I know Eames will, too."
Arthur shrugs; the nonchalance is only partly faked. "It's necessary." Eames understands this better than Ariadne does.
"Still. It's such a radical change."
He cracks a smile as he remembers Eames' passport. "Wait till you see Eames." Eames' picture had shown him in a short, peroxide blond buzz-cut. It peaked Arthur's curiosity, because in all the years he's known Eames, he's seen him in many disguises, but never anything like this. It still makes Arthur wonder how many years ago the picture was taken and what had led to this unfortunate colour.
"What about mine?" Ariadne asks and the smile slips from Arthur's face. "What about my passport?"
Arthur runs his hand through her hair, revelling in the feel of it; silky, smooth, warm. He remembers it gliding over his chest in Finland, shining in the odd light of the midnight sun, remembers Eames brushing it and Ariadne humming in contentment. He hates what he has to do next.
"Arthur?"
He lets go of her with a reluctant caress and goes to retrieve her passport from his jacket that's lying folded over a wooden chair by the window. It takes him a moment to slip it out of the small inside pocket. He's aware that Ariadne's gaze never strays from him. She brushes her hair behind her ears, one strand wound around her index finger, twirling back and forth, back and forth. That habit is a tell she'll be forced to break herself of.
Arthur forces himself to look away and hands her the passport. Ariadne unwinds the strand from her finger and reaches for the document, haltingly. Eventually, she takes it, opens it on the picture page to find a picture of herself with a short pixie-cut, making her look so young it hurts.
Apart from a sharp intake of breath, she reacts different from what he had expected. There's no tantrum, no horror, just quiet acceptance. "It's necessary, right?" She's putting on a brave front, Arthur sees through her not-yet-developed attempt at a poker face, the idea of cutting her hair this short hurts her nearly physically, but she doesn't complain about the necessity, not in the moment and not later. Not once.
Arthur rails against the necessity silently, though, even as he makes the arrangements.
She closes her eyes when the bird-boned woman Arthur calls in picks up the scissors. Ariadne's face is smooth, but her hands are clenched tightly into the armrests of the heavy wooden chair she's sitting on.
Arthur watches the long tresses fall and cover the parquet darkened with age and thinks just how much Ariadne already had to give up because of him. In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively small price to pay, but it goes out of proportion as he watches her. It's like watching the final piece of her innocence fall away.
Eames slips into the room quietly, his now white-blond hair an eyesore. Ariadne doesn't see him, her eyes are still held firmly closed. Arthur forces himself not to look at Eames as Eames runs a hand over Arthur's head. He can't take the naked openness in Eames' eyes right now. The short bristles whisper against Eames' palm. Arthur feels goosebumps skitter over his skin and leans his head against Eames' hand.
The woman cutting Ariadne's hair is the no-nonsense, efficient type, she works quickly and within less than fifteen minutes, Ariadne has the perfect pixie cut and looks so painfully young that Arthur feels the need to pinch himself.
She opens her eyes when the hairdresser brushes away tiny bits of cut-off hair with a corner of the towel and bites her lip.
"Get me some of your dye," Ariadne says, turning toward Eames. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right."
***
Part 16: Trans Siberian
Arthur looks at the picture in the newly acquired passports and fights a sigh. The picture Eames' contact in the MI-6 found of him is eight years old and right before it had been taken, he'd come from the hairdresser in order to have a truly spectacular neon-green Mohawk shorn off. Of course Eames' contact would find exactly that picture and use it for the new passport.
They're hiding in a currently empty room in a run-down Kommunalka, getting ready for the journey on the train. Eames is out getting them a fresh set of clothes. Getting ready also means that Arthur has to resemble the kid in the picture.
He clenches his right hand around the electric razor, switches it on and guides it up to his forehead, rests it there for a moment and feels it buzzing against his skin. It's a stupid thing to hesitate. It's just hair, it'll grow back. Nevertheless, he lets the razor sink. Just a little longer. There are things he needs to consider, lists he needs to tick off, even if they're just in his head.
Cut hair, change clothes, get supplies, cover tracks, arrange for a passage across the Chinese border, find a way to contact Saito. He clamps down on the reaction that's trying to surface when he thinks about what Eames' contact had said. Not now. He needs more lists. Making lists to tick off usually calms him.
Baby-wipes, hand sanitiser, guns, bottled water, taser, toilet paper, ammunition, books, a way to smuggle the PASIV case on board the train and not have it stolen...
It's no use. The usual tactic doesn't work, he's too distracted by what happened just an hour ago. He needs to wrap his head around the fact that he let Eames hand over the SFNX program to a woman he says he trusts with his life, but whom Arthur has no reason to trust in at all. Arthur still has the worst feeling in the world about this.
Ariadne, who's been out to use the communal restrooms, walks back in the room, sees him and stops in her tracks, horrified. "What are you - " She takes in the razor and walks over to him. "Arthur, no."
He gives her a lopsided smile, grateful for the distraction. "It's necessary," he says. A little more gentle, he adds, "It'll grow back."
"But - " she doesn't finish, just reaches up and runs both her hands through his hair, reverently, as though she's trying to commit the feel of it to memory.
Arthur leans into her touch and closes his eyes. He hasn't shown her her new passport yet and isn't proud to think that he fears the moment when he will. "You're not making this any easier."
"Good," she replies and kisses him. "I don't mean to."
It's the first time they've kissed in what feels like days and Arthur finds himself reacting, opening up to her tongue and hands, a thirsting man finding a well. He's missed the feel of her skin, her scent, her warmth. It's so easy to get lost in her.
As he pulls her close and trails kisses along her neck, tracing hints of perfume, his mind wanders. Sometimes, Arthur thinks that Ariadne’s the one thing left that's bright and untainted by the life they lead. But he reminds himself that this isn't true. And, most of all, that she's not as innocent as her face appears. It's what draws him to her; the layers, the competence, the quick wit. The heady blend of freshman features and very adult humour and tastes.
He needs her as much as he needs Eames, for different reasons. Eames has known him for longer, they have a history, but Ariadne sees something in him Eames no longer does, if only because he's known Arthur for too long. She touches upon the hollow spaces inside him and he finds himself wanting to crawl inside her and let her damn well take care of him. He knows she could be a leader, in her own way. It wouldn't be smooth at first, but she'd grow into it. Arthur knows without a doubt that, given a few years, Ariadne will be at the top of the dreamshare business. But not now. Now she's what keeps him sane and he vows to make sure she's safe.
Arthur nuzzles the sensitive spot at the base of her neck with a suppressed sigh, murmuring under his breath, kissing the promise into her skin, and she shudders as his breath trails down her neck. She buries her hands in his hair to pull him closer. There's something in her scent and posture that changes in those few split-seconds and he tenses, feels the mood-swing, and wishes he'd kept his mouth shut.
"Ariadne - " he tries between kisses when she starts to glide her hands under his shirt.
"Don't," she whispers. It's a sharp, desperate plea. Her eyes are dark, both determined and scared. "Don't try to protect me. Don't tell me things will be all right when they won't be. After all this, I want one thing from you: honesty. Dish it. I can handle it."
"Can you?" he asks, unable to stop the question. "If I tell you that you'll have to shoot someone, could you do it?"
"I shot Mal."
"In a dream."
"The guys in the internet café in Finland."
"Wounded, not killed."
She pushes against his chest, forcefully, creating a space between them. "What are you saying?" she asks. "That I'm not fit for this life? Not ready for it? Are you treating me like Eames' precious Suz did?"
He makes to answer, but she interrupts him before he has the chance. "Newsflash, Arthur: I know my shortcomings. But I'm learning on the way. You stopped treating me like a novice when we got to Finland. Don't start again now. I can do this."
"I know." He hopes she understands that wanting to keep her safe doesn't equal doubting her abilities. If there's one thing he has never doubted, it's her ability to adapt.
She relaxes a little as his statement sinks in. Crisis averted. For the moment.
"So now what?"
"Would you like to do the honours?" Arthur asks, nodding toward the razor.
Ariadne shakes her head. "I hate committing sacrilege."
Arthur twitches a grin, reaches for the razor and gets to work, his eyes never leaving Ariadne's. He works by feel, not with the help of the crude, dull mirror in the room. The more of his hair falls, the harder Ariadne bites her lip, and looks torn between laughter and tears. But there's more there. Something darker. Something that seems to strengthen her resolve.
Once it's all gone, Arthur steps out of the piles of hair on the floor, brushes it off his shoulders. He can't help but think that it looks like somebody has just been shearing a black sheep. It's quiet in the room now that the buzzing sounds of the razor is gone, and all Arthur hears is Ariadne's breathing and the faraway noise of somebody clinking pots together in the kitchen of the Kommunalka.
"Well?" Arthur asks, because damn it, he never pretended he wasn't a little vain. He runs a hand over his head, using Ariadne as a mirror instead of the actual one.
"Like you came straight out of a Solzhenitzyn novel," she comments, dryly.
Arthur gives her the middle finger.
"The things you do when you're on the run." Her teasing mood fades there and then. She steps closer, brushes some leftover hair off Arthur's shoulders and rests her hands there, thumbs gliding along the back of his neck into the short stubble on his head. Goosebumps skitter down Arthur's arms. It takes her a while to look him in the eye and ask the question that he knows has been formulating on the tip of her tongue. "We might not make it, right?"
Arthur takes a breath, raises his hands and frames her face with them. "I can't promise it." There. She wanted honesty. It's both a relief and a punch to the gut to say it out loud.
Ariadne searches his eyes, holds his gaze and the raw display of emotions scares Arthur. Determination, fear, anger, stubbornness, helplessness, all of it and more. He's not proud to say he's relieved when she looks away.
"Thank you," she says eventually.
He doesn't ask what she means, but is a bit surprised when she kisses him again, deep and dirty.
"What are you - " he starts and moves away.
"We're running for our damn lives," she frames the back of his head with her hands and yanks him against her with no gentleness whatsoever, her breasts pressing against his chest, "we haven't had sex since Finland. If I die, I don't want to get to heaven sexually frustrated, you hear me?"
It's delivered with such outraged earnestness that Arthur can't help but laugh, even if the underlying implication twists his stomach, even if his body reacts to her proximity. "You think you'll get to heaven?"
"Hell will have its hands full with you and Eames," she informs him with a grin that doesn't reach her eyes.
"But you know hell's fondness for young women."
"Virgins. For sacrifices."
"And you're - "
She pushes against his chest, her eyes narrowed. It's a look usually reserved for Eames, but there's more, a deeper meaning. No, she's not the same woman he met in Paris. Hasn't been for a while.
"Definitely not one," he finishes, kissing her again. Their back and forth is easy, but it's hollow, lacking the zing to make it alive, make it fun. It has an edge it didn't have before. Arthur hates seeing her like this. So he kisses her instead, trying to block out the vision.
She's much more aggressive now, and he reads the despair behind her actions, it's near enough to make him lose his fucking erection, and wouldn't Eames laugh if he could see this?
"Focus, damn it," Ariadne commands and grabs him through his pants, massages him expertly enough to send Arthur cross-eyed. "Don't think about anything else now." The 'make me forget' hangs heavy in the air even if it's not spoken.
Her grip on him is too tight, he almost hisses in pain, so he turns the page, pushes her up against the wall, hikes up her skirt, and spreads her legs. He sinks to his knees in front of her and hears rather than sees her rest her head against the wall with a hollow plonk. Arthur goes to work ruthlessly, lips and tongue and teeth working her until her legs start to shake and only then does he push his index finger into her. She whimpers, spreads her legs wider. Her scent surrounds him. Her taste is sharp on his tongue, and, oh, yes, this is working. For both of them. She's hot and tight and nowhere near wet enough to make this painless, but Ariadne doesn't seem to care, so he doesn't ask.
The blood rushes in his ears loud enough to make him miss what she's saying until he pulls back for a breath. "More," she whispers in a harsh pant. "More."
He inserts a second finger, circles his tongue around the most sensitive part of her clit - he's done his damn research and knows where she reacts the most - and right on cue, she bucks against him; he adds a third, twists and curls the fingers just as he presses his tongue hard and flat against her clit and she gasps, loud, clenches around him tight enough to make his fingers hurt. Her hands are back on his head, sliding over his shorn hair, she knows his damn weak spot too and he knows she wants to grab fistfuls that aren't there. She pushes his face against her crotch, palms hot on his scalp instead, as she rides out the waves of her orgasm with a suppressed keening noise at the back of her throat.
Arthur eases back when breathing becomes an issue and wipes his mouth with his left hand. He sees a bruise beginning to blossom on Ariadne's hip where he's held onto her and the knowledge that Eames will see it is strangely exhilarating.
He's lost in the memory of Seinäjoki for a few seconds, flashing back to hours and hours of learning to know each other's bodies, his dick twitching. He's distracted long enough for him to wonder where the hell Ariadne got the condom she's holding toward him.
It doesn't matter, though. He gets up from his knees, unzips and drops his pants around his feet, shuffles closer with an awkward move and kisses her, hard and deep. "Move," she urges into his mouth. "Move, move, move."
At this point, Arthur doesn't need to be told twice. He rolls on the condom, lifts her ass, wraps her legs around his waist and slides into her with a groan as her body welcomes him. Arthur looks at Ariadne for just a moment; her eyes open and dark enough to swallow him whole. He gives himself and her the space of a breath to adjust before he fucks her hard and fast, their bodies slapping together obscenely loud. The empty bookshelf on the wall beside them rattles.
It's over embarrassingly fast; he comes with a muted shout when she runs a fingernail over his nipple, sensitive even through his shirt. He leans against her afterward, forehead resting against her collarbone, his legs trembling as he slides back out of her.
He guides her back down to the ground and from the way she moves, he can tell that he came before she could for a second time. Ariadne kisses him, shakes her head. "Thank you."
Once they pull their clothes back on, she smoothes her hand over his buzz cut for a little while longer, fingertips rasping over the short stubble, and tracing his skull as though getting used to the feel of it. Sparks of awareness skitter over his skin, little aftershocks.
"I hate this," she murmurs. "I know Eames will, too."
Arthur shrugs; the nonchalance is only partly faked. "It's necessary." Eames understands this better than Ariadne does.
"Still. It's such a radical change."
He cracks a smile as he remembers Eames' passport. "Wait till you see Eames." Eames' picture had shown him in a short, peroxide blond buzz-cut. It peaked Arthur's curiosity, because in all the years he's known Eames, he's seen him in many disguises, but never anything like this. It still makes Arthur wonder how many years ago the picture was taken and what had led to this unfortunate colour.
"What about mine?" Ariadne asks and the smile slips from Arthur's face. "What about my passport?"
Arthur runs his hand through her hair, revelling in the feel of it; silky, smooth, warm. He remembers it gliding over his chest in Finland, shining in the odd light of the midnight sun, remembers Eames brushing it and Ariadne humming in contentment. He hates what he has to do next.
"Arthur?"
He lets go of her with a reluctant caress and goes to retrieve her passport from his jacket that's lying folded over a wooden chair by the window. It takes him a moment to slip it out of the small inside pocket. He's aware that Ariadne's gaze never strays from him. She brushes her hair behind her ears, one strand wound around her index finger, twirling back and forth, back and forth. That habit is a tell she'll be forced to break herself of.
Arthur forces himself to look away and hands her the passport. Ariadne unwinds the strand from her finger and reaches for the document, haltingly. Eventually, she takes it, opens it on the picture page to find a picture of herself with a short pixie-cut, making her look so young it hurts.
Apart from a sharp intake of breath, she reacts different from what he had expected. There's no tantrum, no horror, just quiet acceptance. "It's necessary, right?" She's putting on a brave front, Arthur sees through her not-yet-developed attempt at a poker face, the idea of cutting her hair this short hurts her nearly physically, but she doesn't complain about the necessity, not in the moment and not later. Not once.
Arthur rails against the necessity silently, though, even as he makes the arrangements.
She closes her eyes when the bird-boned woman Arthur calls in picks up the scissors. Ariadne's face is smooth, but her hands are clenched tightly into the armrests of the heavy wooden chair she's sitting on.
Arthur watches the long tresses fall and cover the parquet darkened with age and thinks just how much Ariadne already had to give up because of him. In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively small price to pay, but it goes out of proportion as he watches her. It's like watching the final piece of her innocence fall away.
Eames slips into the room quietly, his now white-blond hair an eyesore. Ariadne doesn't see him, her eyes are still held firmly closed. Arthur forces himself not to look at Eames as Eames runs a hand over Arthur's head. He can't take the naked openness in Eames' eyes right now. The short bristles whisper against Eames' palm. Arthur feels goosebumps skitter over his skin and leans his head against Eames' hand.
The woman cutting Ariadne's hair is the no-nonsense, efficient type, she works quickly and within less than fifteen minutes, Ariadne has the perfect pixie cut and looks so painfully young that Arthur feels the need to pinch himself.
She opens her eyes when the hairdresser brushes away tiny bits of cut-off hair with a corner of the towel and bites her lip.
"Get me some of your dye," Ariadne says, turning toward Eames. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right."
***
Part 16: Trans Siberian