Terrible Things, 3/4. NC-17.
Title: Terrible Things
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur, Cobb/Mal
Disclaimer: They belong to Christopher Nolan, and I borrow them out of love.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the second round of i_reversebang. I received prompt #1033 by nessismore. Additional warnings for violence and mentions of suicide. It's similar in scope to the movie.
Summary: One day, Arthur woke up and discovered that no one remembered Ariadne and the Fischer job never happened. Finding her only led to even more problems...
Prior chapters:
One - Defining Reality
Two - Shadow Play
Three - On A Mission
It was actually rather difficult to determine which heavily guarded area was the actual sleep lab. Arthur had been too shocked upon his awakening to pay particular attention and Mal had never been as observant. She was determined to find the labs as soon as Arthur mentioned that Joseph had to go assist in the waking process. Something shifted in her gaze, and he was uncomfortably reminded again of the shade in Cobb's mind.
Cobb. Did he think Arthur had died as well? Did he think that Ariadne was his shade and he had gone off the deep end? Arthur wasn't sure what would have become of Cobb without him, but it probably wasn't very good.
Mal was much more vicious than Arthur remembered. The detail following her included a young man with a nametag saying R. Fischer and an older one with a P. Browning nametag. Arthur tried not to do a double take, as their appearances matched their appearances from the Fischer job. Joseph had said that she had harmed Fischer, so it must have been Maurice that had been injured. Mal didn't care when Arthur mentioned it, and her soulless eyes slid past him. The memory of their friendship seemed to be lost.
And then the moment passed, and she seemed to be herself again. There was focus in her eyes, and they lit up when she saw Arthur. "Darling, we must go see to Dominic. These men won't know how to help him as we do."
"But I don't remember where the labs are..."
"No matter." Her expression grew cold and distant again, less like the Mal that Arthur had known for years. Or was it all a dream? he thought suddenly, watching her turn on her heel. She threw herself at Fischer, which he hadn't been expecting. Her elbow collided with his sternum, knocking the breath out of him. Her closed fist came up and smashed into the man's nose, a spurt of blood coming out. As she shoved him aside, she seized his rifle and shot Browning in the chest three times.
It all happened faster than he could blink.
Mal turned to Fischer, that frightening expression on her face. "Take us to the labs."
"I'm not authorized," Fischer wheezed. His large eyes widened even more when Mal swung the rifle in his direction. There was nothing quite like having a loaded AR pointing at your face, and Fischer decided that this wasn't worth protesting any longer.
Arthur was starting to wonder who Annabelle had been, and if this was who he was actually looking at.
Fischer stumbled through the halls, his own rifle pointed at his back. Arthur didn't touch Browning's despite Mal's urging. "Now is not the time for principles, Arthur!" she hissed.
He shook his head sharply and gestured at Fischer. "They won't shoot. Now let's go. The cycle ought to be starting."
"I'm going to wake him up," Mal said almost dreamily as they walked. It was the same tone she had used to talk about Phillipa and James before they were born. I wonder who they're going to be. I wonder what will make them smile.
Mal shot anyone that dared try to stop them. Arthur thought that she was acting as if the armed guards were all projections, but they weren't. They weren't swarming mindlessly, weren't ignoring their movements. They bled. He had a sick feeling in his gut, but knew that she wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if she thought he was getting in the way.
They burst into the lab as Joseph was helping Eames sit up. Alice was standing over Saito, adjusting the drips on his IV line. There was a timer beside Cobb's bed with two hours still on it, and he was lying asleep on the hospital bed.
Everything seemed to freeze in place as Mal pushed Fischer to the ground. She casually swung the AR in his direction, but Arthur put a hand on her arm. "No, Mal. Not like this." Arthur held out his hand for the rifle. "I'll stand guard."
Mal went to Cobb's bedside, the frightening absent look on her face gone. "Oh, my love. Don't worry, Dom. I'll wake you."
Arthur didn't see what Mal reached for, but it was enough to make the two neurologists scream for her to stop. She shot them both nasty glares, and Arthur stepped closer to Mal. "You'll kill him!" Alice was saying.
"Of course. He needs to wake up."
She was holding an empty syringe against the membrane in the IV line. Arthur understood that she meant to introduce an air bubble and cause an embolism. "Mal," he warned. "That won't work to wake him."
"Of course it will," Mal scoffed.
"There's sedation in the line. You'd send him to limbo," Arthur said, pointing the AR down at the floor and reaching to touch Mal's arm. "You need to let him wake to this level. Otherwise you'll never be together."
Her expression softened and she touched Cobb's sleeping face. "We'll be together. We'll always be together."
"Not if you kill him like this. He dies, he goes to limbo. Then you'll never find him."
Mal's hand wavered, and Arthur reached over to take the syringe. "You don't understand what this is like, Arthur. I know what needs to be done."
"I do understand, Mal," he replied gently. "But this isn't the way to wake him up."
"He's lost without me, you said," Mal murmured, tracing the line of his jaw with one hand.
Arthur saw movement out of the corner of his eye; it was Joseph moving toward an emergency call button. Eyes wide as a silent plea, Arthur held up his free hand. Triggering an alarm might make Mal go off the deep end again, and there had been enough death already.
He didn't want to stop and think about it, but projections didn't bleed. Projections didn't show fear at the sight of a rifle. Best case scenario, those had been other dreamers.
Mal caught his movement, and she whirled around to face Joseph, Eames and Alice. Saito was still asleep, though it was only a matter of time before he woke, since his drips were no longer active. Somnacin didn't take that long to leave the system. "Did you betray me, Arthur?" Mal asked, voice low and hurt. "For them? They're not even real."
"I'm telling you the truth, Mal. You know I don't lie to you," Arthur told her. He was positioned between her and the others in the space where his bed used to be. Though he still held the rifle, he didn't doubt her ability to wrest it from him and shoot him dead. "Dom deserves to wake up properly. He'll be a mess otherwise." Like you are now, he didn't say aloud.
"You're only doing this because you don't want me to hurt her," Mal sneered, looking at Alice's stricken expression. "Would you really choose her over me?"
"Wouldn't you choose Dom over me?" Arthur asked quietly.
Something shifted in her eyes. "Yes, I would."
"And I'd never ask you to choose," Arthur continued in that same lulling tone. "Dom's my friend, too. We have to do what's best for him."
Mal looked down at Dom with a tender expression and shifted her stance to face him more fully. "Yes, that is exactly what I want."
"So do I." Without warning, Arthur sent the butt of the rifle crashing down on the back of Mal's head. She crumpled down so that she was lying across Dom's body. He slept on, oblivious to the chaos above him.
"What the hell is going on, Douglas?" Eames blurted in an American accent.
Arthur turned, the rifle dropping from nerveless fingers. Eames was staring at him in shock, as if he had never seen Arthur behave that way, as if he wasn't fully aware of how lethal Arthur could be if he had to.
"She would have killed you all," Arthur said, taking in the sight of Eames ripping the EEG leads from his scalp. Joseph winced as the delicate electrodes pulled off of the cap and broke, but said nothing. "I couldn't allow her to do that." He met Alice's eyes, seeing how pale and frightened she was. "I won't let her hurt you."
"Come on," Joseph said, pulling on Eames' arm. "We still need to do the debrief..."
"Fuck the debrief," Eames cried incredulously, pointing in Arthur's direction. "What the hell is wrong with Annabelle?"
Arthur's heart seemed to freeze in his chest. "You should go with Joseph," Arthur told him, voice wooden. "You need to complete the mission."
Eames was staring at him. "Major, what the fuck?"
He could vaguely remember how foul mouthed Eames could be when under stress, though the memory was distant and blurred. Was it truly Eames who did that, or the man he was staring at wearing Eames' skin?
"You heard him," Joseph said, steel in his voice now. Eames responded to that, and looked at him. "You've had more than enough time to wake up. We're following protocol."
Joseph and Eames exited the room and more guards piled into the lab. They had their rifles pointed at Arthur, and he didn't imagine that their fingers were on the trigger guards. He kept his hands at his sides, fingers uncurled so that they could see he wasn't carrying a weapon.
"Don't shoot," Alice cried, stepping in the way.
"He's not the one that shot everyone," Fischer piped up from the floor. His color was ashen gray, and the guards finally noticed him. "She did. He stopped it from getting worse."
The guards removed Mal's unconscious body, roughly cuffing her hands behind her in case she woke up while in transit. One glared at Arthur, obviously not trusting him. He kept his rifle trained on Arthur as he approached for the fallen rifle, and he kicked it behind him toward Fischer. Arthur didn't move or have any change in expression. The guard was right not to trust him, especially after Mal's stunt.
"I'll take custody of him," Alice said quietly. "We're still following cool down protocols."
The guard obviously wanted to say something about that, but acquiesced. He remained behind as Alice pushed Arthur into a seat and shone her penlight into his eyes. She did a quick neurological exam; Arthur wondered what it cost her, since she was obviously nervous and had sweat breaking out along her scalp.
As he watched her, Arthur wondered about the somnacin drips. Saito was starting to stir, and his own debriefing protocol would have to be started. Cobb had another hour and a half to go before his. There were other counters, other dreamers.
Alice turned and looked at the guard over her shoulder when she realized Saito was starting to wake up. "Go get Tadashi. He'll have to do the debrief for me."
"Dr. Riordan," the guard began to protest.
"Do it," she barked, standing to her full height. "The Major obviously isn't going to harm me right now, and protocol has to be followed."
Reluctantly, the guard left to get the third researcher. Arthur looked at Alice coolly once they were alone. "You think it's wise to be left alone with me when no one else trusts me?"
"You said you wouldn't hurt me," Alice replied, though Arthur could tell she was nervous and starting to second guess herself.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Arthur told her honestly. He paused. "If I dreamt. I don't dream anymore though, you know that. Not without somnacin."
Something about that nagged at him. He and Cobb had talked about somnacin addiction, about the prolonged exposure and what it would do to their minds. It obviously changed how they slept and dreamt. What else could it do?
"Do you give her somnacin?" Arthur asked abruptly. She was three weeks out of the protocol, if he remembered correctly.
"No, of course not," Alice replied, reaching forward to check his muscle strength again.
"So she doesn't dream either," Arthur said softly. He closed his hands over her wrists when she was close enough. Alice froze, and he could feel the fine tremors in her body. "Don't people go psychotic if they don't dream?"
Tadashi opened the door with a bang then, disrupting the moment and preventing her from answering. Alice pulled away from Arthur and turned to give Tadashi the instructions for where in the debrief protocol she had been when Mal arrived. Apparently it wasn't very far, and he was knowledgeable enough not to need her guidance. Arthur remembered that about him before, too. He was quiet and soft spoken, generally fading into the background if you didn't need to know he was there. He was the same way here, even if he was dressed in a white lab coat.
"I'm taking you back to your rooms," Alice told him in a brisk tone. "I need you to stay there."
"I will," Arthur promised her. "And after you're done doing whatever it is you need to do, I need to show you something."
Her gaze was wary. "What?"
"You don't believe me," Arthur said quietly. "You don't believe you're Ariadne and you don't believe that I know you. You think this world is real and the other one isn't."
"I know who I am. I'm Alice, Major."
Arthur gave her his thin, confident smile. "Then you won't mind taking a walk with me later so I can prove it to you."
As he expected, she couldn't turn down his challenge. "We'll go now," she said. "There isn't any more that I need to do here."
Arthur led Alice through the maze of hallways he had memorized. "Where are we going?" she asked, her voice rising in anxiety. She was starting to regret agreeing to walk with him through the halls, and she looked around nervously. While there were cameras everywhere, it would still take time for remaining security staff to find her. Arthur was skilled and dangerous. She could be dead long before any staff members would find her.
"You're safe with me," Arthur told her quietly. He could almost see the disbelief in her eyes. "I would never harm you, Ariadne."
"I'm not-" she began.
He whirled her around in one of the dead spots where there were no camera feeds. Balance thrown off, she crashed into him. He held her tightly and kissed her. Alice squeaked in surprise, hands flying up to his chest. She didn't push him away as he backed her up against the wall, a hand tangled in her hair and the other at her hip. "We can't," she moaned against his mouth, regret in her voice.
"No cameras here," Arthur told her, moving to mouth her neck.
"Major," she said, a whine of need in her voice. "Douglas."
"Arthur," he corrected, mouth sucking kisses onto her neck and the hand in her hair moving to cup a breast. "I'm Arthur now," he said as she whimpered.
Alice let out a choked sound. "I can't do this. Not in the hallway," she whispered, cheeks flushed.
"There are cameras in my room, probably in yours. They're everywhere. This is the only place we can have privacy." Arthur's voice was a low growl, his hips pressed tight against her. Her breath hitched at the feel of his burgeoning erection pressed to her hip. He kissed her on the mouth, hard and full of frantic need. Knowing that Mal would have killed her without a thought drove home that desperate feeling he had when she had disappeared. "It's been so long, and I almost lost you. I need you, Ariadne, but I won't have the guards staring at you or watching a private moment."
She was simply clinging to his shoulders, fingers biting into the muscle deeply. Alice moaned into his mouth and she kept him close. There was an almost frightened look on her face when he pulled back, but his gaze was tender and full of love. "Arthur?" she whispered, voice hoarse and hesitant. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.
He smiled as he brought his hands to the edge of her shirt. He pulled it up, revealing the thin cotton bra she was wearing. Alice flushed under his gaze. "I wasn't exactly thinking this might happen," she said tartly when he kept staring.
Arthur grinned then moved in to feather kisses along her chest. "I just missed you, Ariadne."
"I'm Alice," she gasped as his mouth moved to the rise of a breast. He lifted that breast out of the bra cup and licked her nipple. Her breath caught, and she had to lick her lips to speak. "You might be Arthur, but my name is Alice."
He sucked on her breast rather than replying, internally smiling when she clutched at the back of his head with one hand, fingers threading through his hair. The other hand was at one of his shoulders to keep her balance. When Arthur pulled back, lips wet and stretching into a pleased grin, Alice seemed almost disappointed. He leaned forward and trailed kisses down her stomach until he reached the waistband of her khakis. Alice made a soft sound, her eyes still large as she watched him. Arthur unbuttoned the pants slowly, so that she could stop him if she really wanted to. He looked up as he knelt in front of her, hooking his fingers beneath the waistband of her khakis. Visibly gulping, Alice helped shove them down from her hips.
Arthur leaned in and kissed the top of her thighs. "I'll take care of you," he murmured as he spread his hands along her hips. She bit her lip and nodded. It wasn't fear exactly; the way her eyes darted around the halls, she obviously worried about security forces walking in on them. He moved his mouth over her sex and spread her folds apart with his thumbs, keeping his palms on her hips. Ariadne tended to buck against his mouth when he did this.
Arthur dove in, licking and sucking. Alice made a soft mewling sound of pleasure, then shoved a fist against her mouth to muffle the noise. Her other hand fell to the back of his head, nails scratching at his scalp. He shifted one hand so that he could slide a finger inside of her, then two. Alice moaned, her hips shifting beneath his mouth. Arthur rolled his tongue around her clit in lazy circles and crooked his fingers into the spots that usually sent Ariadne keening with need, but Alice didn't howl exactly the same way. Twisting his fingers slightly as he licked into her, Arthur pondered what that might mean. He moved his fingers hard and fast once she tightened around them, sucking a little harder on her clit. She was gasping and moving restlessly against him, tugging on his hair. She was trying to say his name behind the fist in her mouth, her breath hitching in her chest as he brought her closer to orgasm.
He caught her when she came, sagging against the wall and nearly falling. Alice trembled in his arms, her breathing ragged. He was hard and thick inside his sweats, though he wasn't sure how long it would take for security to try to track them down to this alcove. "God, I want you so much," he growled against her ear, nipping at it lightly.
Alice reached between them and palmed his erection through the layers of cloth. She gulped for air as she rubbed him gently. "Um... I don't know if we can, the guards..."
Arthur kissed her neck and jaw, pressing himself further against her palm. "At this rate, I won't even need long," he muttered with a self deprecating laugh. "I'll have to defend my stamina some other time."
She laughed a little and pulled at his sweats. Once his cock was free to her touch, Arthur lifted her up against the wall. It only took a little maneuvering to slide inside her. Alice bit her lip and made little frightened noises, afraid she would tip over and fall. She locked her legs tight around his waist, her shoes, khakis and underwear left behind on the floor. She held onto him tightly as he surged inside her, pushing as deeply as he could as fast as he could. Alice moaned and pressed her lips against Arthur's temple, her eyes closed so she could revel in the sensation.
As he thought, Arthur didn't last long. He sagged against her and struggled to get his breathing under control. He was grateful and surprised that there weren't any guards coming. He supposed that they weren't as efficient as he would be, which worked in his favor. It also made him a little angry on Ariadne's behalf; if he had murderous intentions, no one would be able to save her. He tightened his grip on her, holding her close and inhaling the scent of her. The dreaming might have changed him, but this was the same as before and still just as necessary for him.
With regret, they disentangled themselves and hastily dressed. Alice made a face when pulling her underwear back on, making Arthur laugh. "I suppose I'm not as messy as you are."
"Worth it," she replied without thinking, then flushed to the roots of her hair.
Arthur pulled her close by the back of her neck and kissed her thoroughly, tongue sliding into her mouth. She clung to him, leaning into his lithe frame. "I'll make it better next time," he promised, gaze intent on her face.
Cheeks still flushed, Alice shyly smiled. "Maybe I could find areas without surveillance."
Pleased by her response, Arthur led her back through the maze to the hallways she was more familiar with.
There was no security detail looking for him or what had happened to Alice. They were that sure he wouldn't harm her, weren't watching or had more sophisticated means to observe them than he or Mal had presumed. Arthur assumed that it was the first or second explanation; the cameras that were already present were fairly sophisticated and difficult to notice even when they were being searched for.
If her safety wasn't important enough to them, they didn't deserve to keep her as far as he was concerned. She didn't say that she loved him and still insisted that her name was Alice, but the emotional and physical memories were there. On some level, Ariadne remembered what had happened in the dreams.
He could call her Alice if that was what she wanted, but he knew the truth. And he could wait for her to realize it.
***
"I don't do that," Alice said abruptly before opening the binder full of questions. At Arthur's raised eyebrow, she flushed in embarrassment. "The hallway thing. I don't... That's not me. It was adrenaline or something."
"Or you remember being Ariadne," Arthur replied. She opened her mouth to deny it, but he shrugged. "You taste the same. You feel the same."
Alice flushed scarlet, which was an interesting reaction. Ariadne didn't blush so easily. "Let's not talk about that anymore," she said uncomfortably.
"Then what do you want to talk about?" Arthur asked, going easy on her.
"You've been saying the dreams changed you. And then before, that you don't dream at all."
"You know that, though. If you spend long enough dreaming with somnacin, you can't dream without it. That's the only way you'll dream at all."
"Who told you that?"
Arthur frowned at her. "It's common knowledge in dream share. It's almost like an addiction for some. Somnacin changes how you sleep, the entire structure of dream architecture, both literally and figuratively." He thought of the Fischer job, the time involved in the third level. Yusuf's dream den had people living entire lives under sedation, barely waking to take care of physical needs. "People live entire lifetimes there sometimes."
"So they lose track of what's real," Alice said softly.
Arthur looked at her, lips compressed tightly together in displeasure. "I know what's real."
She was like the photo he had of Ariadne after her disappearance. Half hidden, yet still with a hint of a smile on her face, as if she knew a delicious secret. He could catch glimpses of Ariadne in Alice, could see the echoes she worried so much about. The different levels of reality kept bleeding into each other, but Arthur knew that she was a constant. Ariadne didn't change, no matter what reality it was.
Alice sighed. "Let's run through this again..."
Arthur reached across the table, fingers curling around her wrist. "They're the same questions every three to four hours. Do you really think my answers are going to change?"
"They have," she said a hoarse edge to her voice. She stared at his fingers on her wrist. "Some things don't, but other things have."
"What's changed, then?"
"We need to run through these again."
"What's changed?" he asked, fingers tightening around her wrist. Was that his imagination or did his fingers go through her wrist?
"The only thing that's stayed the same are details about Ariadne and the Cobbs. Everything else changes. How you met Eames, Yusuf, Nash, your contacts outside the military, everything. What you remember isn't real."
Though her voice gentled at the end, the quiet words still hit him square in the center of his chest. A bullet in the brain would have been kinder.
He couldn't remember what he told her after that, the questions blurring together. "I need the somnacin," he told her suddenly. "I can help you with your research, you know I can. Mal is the way she is because she isn't dreaming, is she? She sleeps, but there are no dreams and everything shifts and changes in her mind. I've seen it in her. She's not stable. What if it's the withdrawal from it? What if tapering off the doses is a better way to get off of this? I'm only what? Two or three days out? She's weeks out of your protocol. She's deteriorated even in the time I've been here. Anyone can see that."
Alice was considering his words, and he lightly scratched the inside of her wrist. She shivered at the touch. "Major," she began, licking her lips.
"I'm Arthur now," he told her firmly. "Whatever I was before, this is who I chose to become when I left the army and entered dream share. This is who I am now." He pulled her in closer and leaned toward her upturned face. "I've spent years being Arthur. I'm damn good at what I do, and nothing you say will change that."
"There is no dream share community. There is no PASIV device. You never left the army, Major," she insisted.
He had to give her points for consistency. Arthur tipped his head closer to hers and brushed his lips over her lower one. When her mouth parted, he sucked her lower lip in and abraded it lightly with his teeth. He still had his hand on her wrist and she was leaning precariously over her binder full of nonsense questions. "My reality," he told her slowly, "says that I did. That there is a community of thieves and mercenaries, that the underground is far larger and more deceitful than you give credence. My reality says that you are Ariadne and you are mine, and you cannot convince me otherwise."
"That isn't real," she gasped, pulling herself backward. "I'm not who you think I am. You were dreaming all of that. This was all an experiment, just a mission to see what would happen with prolonged exposure and multiple drops within the session."
Arthur's eyes glittered as he rose, leaning over the table. "And now you know, don't you?" he said, voice low and almost menacing. It was his work persona, the tone of voice that let clients know that he would do just about anything to get the job done. It was the tone that no one wanted to fuck with, because they knew he would give as good as he got.
It wasn't fair to levy that voice and expression at Alice. She flinched back, not used to that side of him. Even Ariadne would have taken pause at the full force of his willpower.
He took her face between his hands and watched her blink back tears she didn't want to shed in front of him. He brushed her cheekbones with his thumbs and watched her eyelids flutter as she looked up at him. "Where are your guards now?" he asked.
"Y-you said you wouldn't hurt me." Her voice was breaking and he was sure he could almost hear the pounding of her heart.
It wouldn't take much to wrench her head sideways, to shatter her spinal column and send bone fragments across the spinal cord to sever it. She would fall down dead, then she would wake a layer above gasping for breath. Alice wouldn't have to feel afraid anymore, wouldn't have to keep denying the truth that Arthur knew with absolute certainty.
But some things you just didn't speak of. Some things were just too terrible to talk about, too hideous to voice aloud. Some things could only be alluded to in whispers in the dark, shied away from and feared. There were reasons why humans were scared of the dark, and they never liked to see reminders of it in human form.
"I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe," he said, fully aware of how intimidating that sounded. Arthur bent his head down and kissed her, soft and slow, tongue sliding into her slack mouth. Her fingertips were on his chest, as if she was afraid to really touch him. "You're mine, Ariadne," he said against her mouth. "No matter what name you take or face you wear. I will always know it's you, and you will always belong to me. You promised me."
She closed her eyes as he rained kisses along her face. Arthur moved around the table and pushed the binder of questions aside. "Arthur?" she asked, voice fracturing with fear.
"I love you, Ariadne," he said, moving to kiss her neck. "And you said you would always love me. I know you're keeping your promise the best that you can. I understand that I'm putting you in a precarious position here. You have to maintain your cover. It's too dangerous otherwise, but I can't let this go." His left hand closed around her throat, and her hands stilled instead of pushed at his chest. "I love you, Ariadne," Arthur said, fingers running along the taut muscles of her neck. He could feel the flutter of her pulse from her carotid artery. It wouldn't take much pressure to cut off the blood supply to her brain. She knew that, too. She wasn't stupid, and he wasn't giving her straight answers anymore.
Arthur moved to kiss her neck, teeth scraping gently over the skin. "I love you, Ariadne," he repeated, voice low and rough with desire. "Won't you say it back?" A single tear squeezed out from beneath her lashes. Alice's breaths were shallow and she was frightened. Arthur thought perhaps he should take his hand away from her throat, but it felt as if their futures were entirely dependent on her answer. "Ariadne?" he prompted.
"I love you," she rasped finally, eyes still shut tight. "I will always love you."
Smiling, Arthur claimed her mouth in another kiss. He let his hand fall from her throat to her breast. His other hand was sliding down the side of her body to her waist. "I know you do," he murmured, caressing her. "I know you're only trying to protect me the best way that you know how. It's going to be all right, Ariadne. I promise I will protect you from all that would do you harm. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe."
He leaned against the table and pulled her shivering body flush against his. "You don't have to be afraid," he said, holding her tightly. "You don't ever have to be afraid again. I've got you. You're okay. You're okay. I've got you and nothing will separate us ever again."
She buried her face against his chest and took deep, shuddering breaths. He stroked the back of her head tenderly and pressed a kiss to the top of it. She didn't reply, but the fact that she was clinging to him spoke volumes.
This was real, and he wasn't going to let it fall apart again.
***
***
To the final chapter!
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur, Cobb/Mal
Disclaimer: They belong to Christopher Nolan, and I borrow them out of love.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the second round of i_reversebang. I received prompt #1033 by nessismore. Additional warnings for violence and mentions of suicide. It's similar in scope to the movie.
Summary: One day, Arthur woke up and discovered that no one remembered Ariadne and the Fischer job never happened. Finding her only led to even more problems...
Prior chapters:
One - Defining Reality
Two - Shadow Play
Three - On A Mission
It was actually rather difficult to determine which heavily guarded area was the actual sleep lab. Arthur had been too shocked upon his awakening to pay particular attention and Mal had never been as observant. She was determined to find the labs as soon as Arthur mentioned that Joseph had to go assist in the waking process. Something shifted in her gaze, and he was uncomfortably reminded again of the shade in Cobb's mind.
Cobb. Did he think Arthur had died as well? Did he think that Ariadne was his shade and he had gone off the deep end? Arthur wasn't sure what would have become of Cobb without him, but it probably wasn't very good.
Mal was much more vicious than Arthur remembered. The detail following her included a young man with a nametag saying R. Fischer and an older one with a P. Browning nametag. Arthur tried not to do a double take, as their appearances matched their appearances from the Fischer job. Joseph had said that she had harmed Fischer, so it must have been Maurice that had been injured. Mal didn't care when Arthur mentioned it, and her soulless eyes slid past him. The memory of their friendship seemed to be lost.
And then the moment passed, and she seemed to be herself again. There was focus in her eyes, and they lit up when she saw Arthur. "Darling, we must go see to Dominic. These men won't know how to help him as we do."
"But I don't remember where the labs are..."
"No matter." Her expression grew cold and distant again, less like the Mal that Arthur had known for years. Or was it all a dream? he thought suddenly, watching her turn on her heel. She threw herself at Fischer, which he hadn't been expecting. Her elbow collided with his sternum, knocking the breath out of him. Her closed fist came up and smashed into the man's nose, a spurt of blood coming out. As she shoved him aside, she seized his rifle and shot Browning in the chest three times.
It all happened faster than he could blink.
Mal turned to Fischer, that frightening expression on her face. "Take us to the labs."
"I'm not authorized," Fischer wheezed. His large eyes widened even more when Mal swung the rifle in his direction. There was nothing quite like having a loaded AR pointing at your face, and Fischer decided that this wasn't worth protesting any longer.
Arthur was starting to wonder who Annabelle had been, and if this was who he was actually looking at.
Fischer stumbled through the halls, his own rifle pointed at his back. Arthur didn't touch Browning's despite Mal's urging. "Now is not the time for principles, Arthur!" she hissed.
He shook his head sharply and gestured at Fischer. "They won't shoot. Now let's go. The cycle ought to be starting."
"I'm going to wake him up," Mal said almost dreamily as they walked. It was the same tone she had used to talk about Phillipa and James before they were born. I wonder who they're going to be. I wonder what will make them smile.
Mal shot anyone that dared try to stop them. Arthur thought that she was acting as if the armed guards were all projections, but they weren't. They weren't swarming mindlessly, weren't ignoring their movements. They bled. He had a sick feeling in his gut, but knew that she wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if she thought he was getting in the way.
They burst into the lab as Joseph was helping Eames sit up. Alice was standing over Saito, adjusting the drips on his IV line. There was a timer beside Cobb's bed with two hours still on it, and he was lying asleep on the hospital bed.
Everything seemed to freeze in place as Mal pushed Fischer to the ground. She casually swung the AR in his direction, but Arthur put a hand on her arm. "No, Mal. Not like this." Arthur held out his hand for the rifle. "I'll stand guard."
Mal went to Cobb's bedside, the frightening absent look on her face gone. "Oh, my love. Don't worry, Dom. I'll wake you."
Arthur didn't see what Mal reached for, but it was enough to make the two neurologists scream for her to stop. She shot them both nasty glares, and Arthur stepped closer to Mal. "You'll kill him!" Alice was saying.
"Of course. He needs to wake up."
She was holding an empty syringe against the membrane in the IV line. Arthur understood that she meant to introduce an air bubble and cause an embolism. "Mal," he warned. "That won't work to wake him."
"Of course it will," Mal scoffed.
"There's sedation in the line. You'd send him to limbo," Arthur said, pointing the AR down at the floor and reaching to touch Mal's arm. "You need to let him wake to this level. Otherwise you'll never be together."
Her expression softened and she touched Cobb's sleeping face. "We'll be together. We'll always be together."
"Not if you kill him like this. He dies, he goes to limbo. Then you'll never find him."
Mal's hand wavered, and Arthur reached over to take the syringe. "You don't understand what this is like, Arthur. I know what needs to be done."
"I do understand, Mal," he replied gently. "But this isn't the way to wake him up."
"He's lost without me, you said," Mal murmured, tracing the line of his jaw with one hand.
Arthur saw movement out of the corner of his eye; it was Joseph moving toward an emergency call button. Eyes wide as a silent plea, Arthur held up his free hand. Triggering an alarm might make Mal go off the deep end again, and there had been enough death already.
He didn't want to stop and think about it, but projections didn't bleed. Projections didn't show fear at the sight of a rifle. Best case scenario, those had been other dreamers.
Mal caught his movement, and she whirled around to face Joseph, Eames and Alice. Saito was still asleep, though it was only a matter of time before he woke, since his drips were no longer active. Somnacin didn't take that long to leave the system. "Did you betray me, Arthur?" Mal asked, voice low and hurt. "For them? They're not even real."
"I'm telling you the truth, Mal. You know I don't lie to you," Arthur told her. He was positioned between her and the others in the space where his bed used to be. Though he still held the rifle, he didn't doubt her ability to wrest it from him and shoot him dead. "Dom deserves to wake up properly. He'll be a mess otherwise." Like you are now, he didn't say aloud.
"You're only doing this because you don't want me to hurt her," Mal sneered, looking at Alice's stricken expression. "Would you really choose her over me?"
"Wouldn't you choose Dom over me?" Arthur asked quietly.
Something shifted in her eyes. "Yes, I would."
"And I'd never ask you to choose," Arthur continued in that same lulling tone. "Dom's my friend, too. We have to do what's best for him."
Mal looked down at Dom with a tender expression and shifted her stance to face him more fully. "Yes, that is exactly what I want."
"So do I." Without warning, Arthur sent the butt of the rifle crashing down on the back of Mal's head. She crumpled down so that she was lying across Dom's body. He slept on, oblivious to the chaos above him.
"What the hell is going on, Douglas?" Eames blurted in an American accent.
Arthur turned, the rifle dropping from nerveless fingers. Eames was staring at him in shock, as if he had never seen Arthur behave that way, as if he wasn't fully aware of how lethal Arthur could be if he had to.
"She would have killed you all," Arthur said, taking in the sight of Eames ripping the EEG leads from his scalp. Joseph winced as the delicate electrodes pulled off of the cap and broke, but said nothing. "I couldn't allow her to do that." He met Alice's eyes, seeing how pale and frightened she was. "I won't let her hurt you."
"Come on," Joseph said, pulling on Eames' arm. "We still need to do the debrief..."
"Fuck the debrief," Eames cried incredulously, pointing in Arthur's direction. "What the hell is wrong with Annabelle?"
Arthur's heart seemed to freeze in his chest. "You should go with Joseph," Arthur told him, voice wooden. "You need to complete the mission."
Eames was staring at him. "Major, what the fuck?"
He could vaguely remember how foul mouthed Eames could be when under stress, though the memory was distant and blurred. Was it truly Eames who did that, or the man he was staring at wearing Eames' skin?
"You heard him," Joseph said, steel in his voice now. Eames responded to that, and looked at him. "You've had more than enough time to wake up. We're following protocol."
Joseph and Eames exited the room and more guards piled into the lab. They had their rifles pointed at Arthur, and he didn't imagine that their fingers were on the trigger guards. He kept his hands at his sides, fingers uncurled so that they could see he wasn't carrying a weapon.
"Don't shoot," Alice cried, stepping in the way.
"He's not the one that shot everyone," Fischer piped up from the floor. His color was ashen gray, and the guards finally noticed him. "She did. He stopped it from getting worse."
The guards removed Mal's unconscious body, roughly cuffing her hands behind her in case she woke up while in transit. One glared at Arthur, obviously not trusting him. He kept his rifle trained on Arthur as he approached for the fallen rifle, and he kicked it behind him toward Fischer. Arthur didn't move or have any change in expression. The guard was right not to trust him, especially after Mal's stunt.
"I'll take custody of him," Alice said quietly. "We're still following cool down protocols."
The guard obviously wanted to say something about that, but acquiesced. He remained behind as Alice pushed Arthur into a seat and shone her penlight into his eyes. She did a quick neurological exam; Arthur wondered what it cost her, since she was obviously nervous and had sweat breaking out along her scalp.
As he watched her, Arthur wondered about the somnacin drips. Saito was starting to stir, and his own debriefing protocol would have to be started. Cobb had another hour and a half to go before his. There were other counters, other dreamers.
Alice turned and looked at the guard over her shoulder when she realized Saito was starting to wake up. "Go get Tadashi. He'll have to do the debrief for me."
"Dr. Riordan," the guard began to protest.
"Do it," she barked, standing to her full height. "The Major obviously isn't going to harm me right now, and protocol has to be followed."
Reluctantly, the guard left to get the third researcher. Arthur looked at Alice coolly once they were alone. "You think it's wise to be left alone with me when no one else trusts me?"
"You said you wouldn't hurt me," Alice replied, though Arthur could tell she was nervous and starting to second guess herself.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Arthur told her honestly. He paused. "If I dreamt. I don't dream anymore though, you know that. Not without somnacin."
Something about that nagged at him. He and Cobb had talked about somnacin addiction, about the prolonged exposure and what it would do to their minds. It obviously changed how they slept and dreamt. What else could it do?
"Do you give her somnacin?" Arthur asked abruptly. She was three weeks out of the protocol, if he remembered correctly.
"No, of course not," Alice replied, reaching forward to check his muscle strength again.
"So she doesn't dream either," Arthur said softly. He closed his hands over her wrists when she was close enough. Alice froze, and he could feel the fine tremors in her body. "Don't people go psychotic if they don't dream?"
Tadashi opened the door with a bang then, disrupting the moment and preventing her from answering. Alice pulled away from Arthur and turned to give Tadashi the instructions for where in the debrief protocol she had been when Mal arrived. Apparently it wasn't very far, and he was knowledgeable enough not to need her guidance. Arthur remembered that about him before, too. He was quiet and soft spoken, generally fading into the background if you didn't need to know he was there. He was the same way here, even if he was dressed in a white lab coat.
"I'm taking you back to your rooms," Alice told him in a brisk tone. "I need you to stay there."
"I will," Arthur promised her. "And after you're done doing whatever it is you need to do, I need to show you something."
Her gaze was wary. "What?"
"You don't believe me," Arthur said quietly. "You don't believe you're Ariadne and you don't believe that I know you. You think this world is real and the other one isn't."
"I know who I am. I'm Alice, Major."
Arthur gave her his thin, confident smile. "Then you won't mind taking a walk with me later so I can prove it to you."
As he expected, she couldn't turn down his challenge. "We'll go now," she said. "There isn't any more that I need to do here."
Arthur led Alice through the maze of hallways he had memorized. "Where are we going?" she asked, her voice rising in anxiety. She was starting to regret agreeing to walk with him through the halls, and she looked around nervously. While there were cameras everywhere, it would still take time for remaining security staff to find her. Arthur was skilled and dangerous. She could be dead long before any staff members would find her.
"You're safe with me," Arthur told her quietly. He could almost see the disbelief in her eyes. "I would never harm you, Ariadne."
"I'm not-" she began.
He whirled her around in one of the dead spots where there were no camera feeds. Balance thrown off, she crashed into him. He held her tightly and kissed her. Alice squeaked in surprise, hands flying up to his chest. She didn't push him away as he backed her up against the wall, a hand tangled in her hair and the other at her hip. "We can't," she moaned against his mouth, regret in her voice.
"No cameras here," Arthur told her, moving to mouth her neck.
"Major," she said, a whine of need in her voice. "Douglas."
"Arthur," he corrected, mouth sucking kisses onto her neck and the hand in her hair moving to cup a breast. "I'm Arthur now," he said as she whimpered.
Alice let out a choked sound. "I can't do this. Not in the hallway," she whispered, cheeks flushed.
"There are cameras in my room, probably in yours. They're everywhere. This is the only place we can have privacy." Arthur's voice was a low growl, his hips pressed tight against her. Her breath hitched at the feel of his burgeoning erection pressed to her hip. He kissed her on the mouth, hard and full of frantic need. Knowing that Mal would have killed her without a thought drove home that desperate feeling he had when she had disappeared. "It's been so long, and I almost lost you. I need you, Ariadne, but I won't have the guards staring at you or watching a private moment."
She was simply clinging to his shoulders, fingers biting into the muscle deeply. Alice moaned into his mouth and she kept him close. There was an almost frightened look on her face when he pulled back, but his gaze was tender and full of love. "Arthur?" she whispered, voice hoarse and hesitant. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.
He smiled as he brought his hands to the edge of her shirt. He pulled it up, revealing the thin cotton bra she was wearing. Alice flushed under his gaze. "I wasn't exactly thinking this might happen," she said tartly when he kept staring.
Arthur grinned then moved in to feather kisses along her chest. "I just missed you, Ariadne."
"I'm Alice," she gasped as his mouth moved to the rise of a breast. He lifted that breast out of the bra cup and licked her nipple. Her breath caught, and she had to lick her lips to speak. "You might be Arthur, but my name is Alice."
He sucked on her breast rather than replying, internally smiling when she clutched at the back of his head with one hand, fingers threading through his hair. The other hand was at one of his shoulders to keep her balance. When Arthur pulled back, lips wet and stretching into a pleased grin, Alice seemed almost disappointed. He leaned forward and trailed kisses down her stomach until he reached the waistband of her khakis. Alice made a soft sound, her eyes still large as she watched him. Arthur unbuttoned the pants slowly, so that she could stop him if she really wanted to. He looked up as he knelt in front of her, hooking his fingers beneath the waistband of her khakis. Visibly gulping, Alice helped shove them down from her hips.
Arthur leaned in and kissed the top of her thighs. "I'll take care of you," he murmured as he spread his hands along her hips. She bit her lip and nodded. It wasn't fear exactly; the way her eyes darted around the halls, she obviously worried about security forces walking in on them. He moved his mouth over her sex and spread her folds apart with his thumbs, keeping his palms on her hips. Ariadne tended to buck against his mouth when he did this.
Arthur dove in, licking and sucking. Alice made a soft mewling sound of pleasure, then shoved a fist against her mouth to muffle the noise. Her other hand fell to the back of his head, nails scratching at his scalp. He shifted one hand so that he could slide a finger inside of her, then two. Alice moaned, her hips shifting beneath his mouth. Arthur rolled his tongue around her clit in lazy circles and crooked his fingers into the spots that usually sent Ariadne keening with need, but Alice didn't howl exactly the same way. Twisting his fingers slightly as he licked into her, Arthur pondered what that might mean. He moved his fingers hard and fast once she tightened around them, sucking a little harder on her clit. She was gasping and moving restlessly against him, tugging on his hair. She was trying to say his name behind the fist in her mouth, her breath hitching in her chest as he brought her closer to orgasm.
He caught her when she came, sagging against the wall and nearly falling. Alice trembled in his arms, her breathing ragged. He was hard and thick inside his sweats, though he wasn't sure how long it would take for security to try to track them down to this alcove. "God, I want you so much," he growled against her ear, nipping at it lightly.
Alice reached between them and palmed his erection through the layers of cloth. She gulped for air as she rubbed him gently. "Um... I don't know if we can, the guards..."
Arthur kissed her neck and jaw, pressing himself further against her palm. "At this rate, I won't even need long," he muttered with a self deprecating laugh. "I'll have to defend my stamina some other time."
She laughed a little and pulled at his sweats. Once his cock was free to her touch, Arthur lifted her up against the wall. It only took a little maneuvering to slide inside her. Alice bit her lip and made little frightened noises, afraid she would tip over and fall. She locked her legs tight around his waist, her shoes, khakis and underwear left behind on the floor. She held onto him tightly as he surged inside her, pushing as deeply as he could as fast as he could. Alice moaned and pressed her lips against Arthur's temple, her eyes closed so she could revel in the sensation.
As he thought, Arthur didn't last long. He sagged against her and struggled to get his breathing under control. He was grateful and surprised that there weren't any guards coming. He supposed that they weren't as efficient as he would be, which worked in his favor. It also made him a little angry on Ariadne's behalf; if he had murderous intentions, no one would be able to save her. He tightened his grip on her, holding her close and inhaling the scent of her. The dreaming might have changed him, but this was the same as before and still just as necessary for him.
With regret, they disentangled themselves and hastily dressed. Alice made a face when pulling her underwear back on, making Arthur laugh. "I suppose I'm not as messy as you are."
"Worth it," she replied without thinking, then flushed to the roots of her hair.
Arthur pulled her close by the back of her neck and kissed her thoroughly, tongue sliding into her mouth. She clung to him, leaning into his lithe frame. "I'll make it better next time," he promised, gaze intent on her face.
Cheeks still flushed, Alice shyly smiled. "Maybe I could find areas without surveillance."
Pleased by her response, Arthur led her back through the maze to the hallways she was more familiar with.
There was no security detail looking for him or what had happened to Alice. They were that sure he wouldn't harm her, weren't watching or had more sophisticated means to observe them than he or Mal had presumed. Arthur assumed that it was the first or second explanation; the cameras that were already present were fairly sophisticated and difficult to notice even when they were being searched for.
If her safety wasn't important enough to them, they didn't deserve to keep her as far as he was concerned. She didn't say that she loved him and still insisted that her name was Alice, but the emotional and physical memories were there. On some level, Ariadne remembered what had happened in the dreams.
He could call her Alice if that was what she wanted, but he knew the truth. And he could wait for her to realize it.
***
"I don't do that," Alice said abruptly before opening the binder full of questions. At Arthur's raised eyebrow, she flushed in embarrassment. "The hallway thing. I don't... That's not me. It was adrenaline or something."
"Or you remember being Ariadne," Arthur replied. She opened her mouth to deny it, but he shrugged. "You taste the same. You feel the same."
Alice flushed scarlet, which was an interesting reaction. Ariadne didn't blush so easily. "Let's not talk about that anymore," she said uncomfortably.
"Then what do you want to talk about?" Arthur asked, going easy on her.
"You've been saying the dreams changed you. And then before, that you don't dream at all."
"You know that, though. If you spend long enough dreaming with somnacin, you can't dream without it. That's the only way you'll dream at all."
"Who told you that?"
Arthur frowned at her. "It's common knowledge in dream share. It's almost like an addiction for some. Somnacin changes how you sleep, the entire structure of dream architecture, both literally and figuratively." He thought of the Fischer job, the time involved in the third level. Yusuf's dream den had people living entire lives under sedation, barely waking to take care of physical needs. "People live entire lifetimes there sometimes."
"So they lose track of what's real," Alice said softly.
Arthur looked at her, lips compressed tightly together in displeasure. "I know what's real."
She was like the photo he had of Ariadne after her disappearance. Half hidden, yet still with a hint of a smile on her face, as if she knew a delicious secret. He could catch glimpses of Ariadne in Alice, could see the echoes she worried so much about. The different levels of reality kept bleeding into each other, but Arthur knew that she was a constant. Ariadne didn't change, no matter what reality it was.
Alice sighed. "Let's run through this again..."
Arthur reached across the table, fingers curling around her wrist. "They're the same questions every three to four hours. Do you really think my answers are going to change?"
"They have," she said a hoarse edge to her voice. She stared at his fingers on her wrist. "Some things don't, but other things have."
"What's changed, then?"
"We need to run through these again."
"What's changed?" he asked, fingers tightening around her wrist. Was that his imagination or did his fingers go through her wrist?
"The only thing that's stayed the same are details about Ariadne and the Cobbs. Everything else changes. How you met Eames, Yusuf, Nash, your contacts outside the military, everything. What you remember isn't real."
Though her voice gentled at the end, the quiet words still hit him square in the center of his chest. A bullet in the brain would have been kinder.
He couldn't remember what he told her after that, the questions blurring together. "I need the somnacin," he told her suddenly. "I can help you with your research, you know I can. Mal is the way she is because she isn't dreaming, is she? She sleeps, but there are no dreams and everything shifts and changes in her mind. I've seen it in her. She's not stable. What if it's the withdrawal from it? What if tapering off the doses is a better way to get off of this? I'm only what? Two or three days out? She's weeks out of your protocol. She's deteriorated even in the time I've been here. Anyone can see that."
Alice was considering his words, and he lightly scratched the inside of her wrist. She shivered at the touch. "Major," she began, licking her lips.
"I'm Arthur now," he told her firmly. "Whatever I was before, this is who I chose to become when I left the army and entered dream share. This is who I am now." He pulled her in closer and leaned toward her upturned face. "I've spent years being Arthur. I'm damn good at what I do, and nothing you say will change that."
"There is no dream share community. There is no PASIV device. You never left the army, Major," she insisted.
He had to give her points for consistency. Arthur tipped his head closer to hers and brushed his lips over her lower one. When her mouth parted, he sucked her lower lip in and abraded it lightly with his teeth. He still had his hand on her wrist and she was leaning precariously over her binder full of nonsense questions. "My reality," he told her slowly, "says that I did. That there is a community of thieves and mercenaries, that the underground is far larger and more deceitful than you give credence. My reality says that you are Ariadne and you are mine, and you cannot convince me otherwise."
"That isn't real," she gasped, pulling herself backward. "I'm not who you think I am. You were dreaming all of that. This was all an experiment, just a mission to see what would happen with prolonged exposure and multiple drops within the session."
Arthur's eyes glittered as he rose, leaning over the table. "And now you know, don't you?" he said, voice low and almost menacing. It was his work persona, the tone of voice that let clients know that he would do just about anything to get the job done. It was the tone that no one wanted to fuck with, because they knew he would give as good as he got.
It wasn't fair to levy that voice and expression at Alice. She flinched back, not used to that side of him. Even Ariadne would have taken pause at the full force of his willpower.
He took her face between his hands and watched her blink back tears she didn't want to shed in front of him. He brushed her cheekbones with his thumbs and watched her eyelids flutter as she looked up at him. "Where are your guards now?" he asked.
"Y-you said you wouldn't hurt me." Her voice was breaking and he was sure he could almost hear the pounding of her heart.
It wouldn't take much to wrench her head sideways, to shatter her spinal column and send bone fragments across the spinal cord to sever it. She would fall down dead, then she would wake a layer above gasping for breath. Alice wouldn't have to feel afraid anymore, wouldn't have to keep denying the truth that Arthur knew with absolute certainty.
But some things you just didn't speak of. Some things were just too terrible to talk about, too hideous to voice aloud. Some things could only be alluded to in whispers in the dark, shied away from and feared. There were reasons why humans were scared of the dark, and they never liked to see reminders of it in human form.
"I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe," he said, fully aware of how intimidating that sounded. Arthur bent his head down and kissed her, soft and slow, tongue sliding into her slack mouth. Her fingertips were on his chest, as if she was afraid to really touch him. "You're mine, Ariadne," he said against her mouth. "No matter what name you take or face you wear. I will always know it's you, and you will always belong to me. You promised me."
She closed her eyes as he rained kisses along her face. Arthur moved around the table and pushed the binder of questions aside. "Arthur?" she asked, voice fracturing with fear.
"I love you, Ariadne," he said, moving to kiss her neck. "And you said you would always love me. I know you're keeping your promise the best that you can. I understand that I'm putting you in a precarious position here. You have to maintain your cover. It's too dangerous otherwise, but I can't let this go." His left hand closed around her throat, and her hands stilled instead of pushed at his chest. "I love you, Ariadne," Arthur said, fingers running along the taut muscles of her neck. He could feel the flutter of her pulse from her carotid artery. It wouldn't take much pressure to cut off the blood supply to her brain. She knew that, too. She wasn't stupid, and he wasn't giving her straight answers anymore.
Arthur moved to kiss her neck, teeth scraping gently over the skin. "I love you, Ariadne," he repeated, voice low and rough with desire. "Won't you say it back?" A single tear squeezed out from beneath her lashes. Alice's breaths were shallow and she was frightened. Arthur thought perhaps he should take his hand away from her throat, but it felt as if their futures were entirely dependent on her answer. "Ariadne?" he prompted.
"I love you," she rasped finally, eyes still shut tight. "I will always love you."
Smiling, Arthur claimed her mouth in another kiss. He let his hand fall from her throat to her breast. His other hand was sliding down the side of her body to her waist. "I know you do," he murmured, caressing her. "I know you're only trying to protect me the best way that you know how. It's going to be all right, Ariadne. I promise I will protect you from all that would do you harm. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe."
He leaned against the table and pulled her shivering body flush against his. "You don't have to be afraid," he said, holding her tightly. "You don't ever have to be afraid again. I've got you. You're okay. You're okay. I've got you and nothing will separate us ever again."
She buried her face against his chest and took deep, shuddering breaths. He stroked the back of her head tenderly and pressed a kiss to the top of it. She didn't reply, but the fact that she was clinging to him spoke volumes.
This was real, and he wasn't going to let it fall apart again.
***
***
To the final chapter!