Even Lovers Drown, 3/4. NC-17
Title: Even Lovers Drown
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur/Eames (and all permutations within the trio)
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. His toys are fun to play with!
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Written for the 2013 Reverse Bang in response to piece #203, beautifulweddin's art. Incorporates the inception_kink meme prompt in round 20: Eames has always used forging as his totem. Concerned that Ariadne, new to dreaming, is being taught to rely on something that failed Cobb so miserably (a physical totem of reality), he takes over her tutelage and has her use her ability to fold architecture as hers.
Summary: Ariadne fell in love with dreaming and building, and was determined to stay within the business as best as she could. Falling in love with Arthur and Eames shouldn't have made that more difficult to do.
Prior chapters:
One - The Swimming Lad
Two - Body To Body
Three - Plunging Down
Having both Arthur and Eames in the same hotel room with Ariadne in Dublin was terribly distracting. Eames always had a penchant for teasing, but now it was more overtly sexual than before. Her cheeks flamed hot, and it was far too easy for either of them to tell what she was thinking. She was all too eager to play into their fantasies and have them act out her own. Eames could bend her over the edge of the bed and take her from behind as she sucked on Arthur's cock. He cradled her head in his hands when she took him into her mouth as Arthur watched, massaging her flesh until she was wet enough for him to enter her. Or Arthur would make love to her slowly as Eames watched, jerking off with a smug smile on his face. Eames was fascinated with the planes of Arthur's body, doing whatever he could to bring Arthur to mind shattering release. When passions cooled a little, the three would start to discuss the extraction of banking codes from a businessman that had cheated the partners he bought out.
This was perfect. It was everything that Ariadne had hoped it would be. As much as she had fallen into this life completely by accident, it was as if she had waited for this her whole life. There was no reason to return to the United States; her parents were divorced and neither had much interaction with her since she started college. Each had remarried and had other children they worried about, and Ariadne had never really gotten along with any of her half siblings. She was always the odd one out, the artsy girl with lofty dreams no one else understood. Going to Paris had been a relief for everyone in her family, and no one seemed to notice when she didn't return for holidays. It was sad, but there were no ties to cut in order to stay on the move with Arthur and Eames.
Arthur was planning to take her to the theater that evening, leaving Eames in the hotel room to go through the data that they had on the subject. He wanted to figure out a way to get the three of them alone with O'Rourke, then out of the way before he woke up. The man's home was possibly the best bet; it was a large, gated house not too far from Dublin with good security teams hired to keep him safe, but they kept to the same shifts and could easily be avoided. O'Rourke rightly suspected his former business partners wanted to get even, but he didn't know what they were willing to do. As far as Arthur's contact could tell, O'Rourke had been a bit on the paranoid side even before the buyout, and that had only worsened afterward.
"Go for a long and luxurious dinner after the show," Eames suggested. He was surrounded by photographs and manila folders full of raw data that Arthur had painstakingly put together. "I'll have an answer of some kind by the time you get back."
The play was as good as the reviews had said, dinner was excellent and Ariadne enjoyed an evening of the posh, elite life. It was so very different from a student's life, but one she could enjoy now that she had a hefty Swiss bank account. Arthur had taken over planning and paying for everything so far, but she was going to insist on being an equal partner soon. There was only so much coddling she wanted; sooner or later she would have to prove she was on the same footing and could deal with whatever dream share had to offer.
Eames had taken his own notes and jotted down ideas he had while perusing Arthur's. "I think I have the way into the house," he announced when they returned to the room. He was dressed in nothing but a loose robe barely even tied at the waist. His eyes danced when they returned. "Do go on and have the post-date sex," he teased. "I'll join you in a moment."
"You have a filthy mind, Mr. Eames," Arthur commented, locking the door behind him. He toed off his shoes before starting to remove his jacket and tie.
"You love every depraved corner of it, too," Eames responded, putting aside the folder he was holding. He leaned forward to help Ariadne unzip the back of her dress, and grinned as it fell from her lean frame. "Mmm. You too, I imagine. No knickers tonight?"
Ariadne stepped out of the puddled silk and kicked off her heels. Dressed in just a garter belt and stockings, she did a playful pirouette on her tip toes. "Do you approve, then?"
"Oh, very much so," Eames replied, letting the loose knot at his waist fall completely open.
Arthur removed his cufflinks and shirt, tossing them aside rather carelessly as he hungrily stared at Ariadne. "You know I do," he murmured, sliding his hands around her waist. She shivered at his touch and smiled up at him. "And there you were, teasing me all night..."
Unbuckling his belt, Ariadne made short work of his trousers and underwear. "Get rid of all that. You know what the sight of you in a good suit does."
"I do?" he asked, a playful tilt to his lips. Taunting her further, he bent down to press his lips to her forehead. "Perhaps it's what the sight of you in that dress did to me."
She grasped his cock and stroked it gently. "Yeah, something like that."
It was easy for her to fall into the sensation of Arthur's cock in her hand and his tongue in her mouth as he kissed her. She fell backward onto the bed after Eames moved out of the way, and Arthur hovered over her body. He didn't make any move to fondle her the way he usually did, which was frustrating. When Eames did the honors, it made more sense. Between the two of them, they worked her to a fevered pitch, just on the brink of orgasm. Ariadne groaned in frustrated desire with Eames withdrew his fingers, but that turned into a strangled howl of pleasure as Arthur thrust into her. He rode her hard and fast, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he stared down at her and tried not to come.
Arthur came too quickly, likely because too much teasing and wine with dinner. Eames took his place when he withdrew, making Ariadne moan wantonly. She watched him kiss Arthur as he fucked her slowly, his large hands keeping her hips still. She grasped at his hips and thighs, but he refused to budge or move faster. Her gasped demands didn't affect that languid pace, either. He was determined to leave her breathless and spent, tingling for hours afterward. That wasn't exactly a hardship to endure.
Only when she finally came did Eames pick up the pace. Her throat was dry from gasping and moaning, trying to twist beneath him. She had scratched at him and pulled at the sheets, grasped Arthur when he moved to her side and sucked on her breasts. Eames moved quickly, hips snapping against hers, the sound obscene and hot at once.
He collapsed on top of her afterward, forcing the air from her lungs. He caught a curl around his finger and tugged gently, a tender smile on his lips. "This job will be just as lovely, I think. Your dream and our cunning, in and out, right quick."
"You have a plan for getting into the house, then?" Arthur asked, perking up at Eames' confident tone. Sometimes the forger just needed a little time to let the pieces fall into place. Arthur's style was different, more methodical and reliant on the subject's schedules. Once on a job, however, his background in the military and security companies came in handy.
"Absolutely. Even you would be pleased with it." Eames shifted so that he wasn't crushing Ariadne any longer. She was pressed tightly between the two men, and she gave a soft, contented sigh. "Details in the morning, I think. Our lovely lass is tired."
"I wonder why," she snarked, putting an arm around each one. "Sweet dreams."
"Always," Arthur said, pressing a kiss to her lips. Eames merely smiled and settled to sleep beside her.
***
Getting into O'Rourke's home was as easy as Eames had thought it would be. He and his boyfriend got into an argument that Eames maintained he had nothing to do with starting, though the boyfriend was a known flirt and tended to spend time in clubs as if looking for a quick hookup. O'Rourke was left behind after Charlie stormed off, and he drank himself into a stupor, likely imagining that Charlie would cheat. There was no need for extra sedative; the alcohol and the naturally sedating properties of Yusuf's somnacin were more than enough to keep him under to start the extraction.
Ariadne stayed topside to watch over Arthur and Eames as they went in. She didn't think it would be all that difficult to sit and watch three men sleep. Arthur had agreed, but he was still armed with a Glock 19 under his suit jacket and Eames had brought a USP Compact. At one point while practicing Ariadne's maze, Arthur had taken her aside to give her some training in the basics of firearms handling. As much as his Glock had felt large and unwieldy in her hands, in a pinch she had to know how his pistol fired. The recoil had wound its way up her arm, and her aim was terrible. The only reason she had managed to shoot Mal in the chest was that she had been practically in point blank range and it was a dream. Ariadne had wanted to hurt Mal, and dream mechanics ensured that she did. There were no such safeguards in real life.
For practice, Ariadne reached out with her architect's sense and tried to pull on the corners of the room. They didn't move. She had her bishop in her pocket, and knocking it over felt as real as it had when she first made the totem. Twisting worlds around her in dreams was definitely a skill she couldn't replicate in reality, though it was a nice enough exercise to try. Arthur had tried to borrow a page from her and warp the dream around himself, but he didn't have the same finesse she did. Dreams twisted in chunky clumps, breaking apart the buildings and setting Eames' projections staring at him and reaching for knives. It was only Eames' sheer force of will that kept them from rending him limb from limb.
O'Rourke gasped and twisted after about a minute after the somnacin drip began. Ariadne stopped staring at the walls and looked at him anxiously. Sweat was breaking out, and his mouth open, lips more swollen than before.
Dear God, he was allergic to somnacin.
Panicked, she put the headphones over Arthur's ears and pressed play for the musical cue. She depressed the end button on the PASIV. Another minute had gone by, and O'Rourke's lips were most definitely swollen and an angry red. His breathing was obviously ragged, and she looked around the room. None of Arthur's research had revealed an allergy, but she was almost expecting an EpiPen to magically appear within arm's reach.
But no, this was reality. Things like that only happened in dreams.
Arthur woke, a frown immediately creasing his forehead. "What is it?"
"He's allergic," Ariadne said, pointing to O'Rourke. "Is it going to kill him?"
Eames stirred and looked around with bleary eyes. "That was a nasty drop," he muttered, shaking his head. That tended to happen with sudden exits. His gaze sharpened when he took in Ariadne's pale face and frightened expression. Arthur had his lips pressed tightly together. "Damage control?" he asked, tension evident in his voice.
"Anaphylactic shock. I don't usually keep epinephrine in the PASIV," Arthur said, voice clipped.
"So now what?" Ariadne asked. She'd never dealt with something like this before, and didn't know what to do other than bring O'Rourke to a hospital, which wasn't an option.
"I'll go see if there's something we can use..." Arthur began, heading to O'Rourke's bathroom. A moment later she could hear him banging about in the medicine cabinet, nearly growling in frustration. "Not even a Panadol Night," he reported, coming out into the bedroom. "I know he doesn't see a doctor regularly, but this is fucking ridiculous."
"Right, then," Eames said with a sigh. "Somnacin breaks down quickly, at least. He'll have a wicked hangover and maybe if he's a good boy will swear off the drink."
"He isn't a good boy," Ariadne said, her voice high and nearly hysterical. "That's why we're here digging shit out of his brain."
Eames spun to face her, concern etched on his features. "Breathe, darling. It's not a disaster yet."
Arthur was already unhooking O'Rourke from the PASIV and discarding the used needles in its sharps container. "Pack up, wipe everything down."
Ariadne hadn't touched anything in the bedroom, but had kept track of where Arthur and Eames had been. She used a microfiber cloth to rub at the surfaces, marring any potential fingerprints they might have made. Eames lifted O'Rourke a bit and thumped him roughly on the back to try to help him breathe easier.
The PASIV was packed up neatly and they were ready to go; Eames hadn't been able to get any bank codes but Arthur possibly obtained the routing numbers for which banks that O'Rourke may have hidden his accounts. That would have to do for their employers, but Ariadne couldn't help but worry about it. What else could go wrong?
She shouldn't have thought that. O'Rourke's boyfriend returned to the house, a bottle of rum in hand and his shirt completely undone. "Oi. Who are you lot?" he asked, voice slurred and eyes starting to widen almost comically. "What's he doing with Roger?"
Arthur started toward Charlie, but he swung the bottle at Arthur's head once he realized that Arthur didn't necessarily have good intentions toward him. Ariadne may have screeched a little, but Arthur didn't even flinch. He swept his left arm up, blocking the bottle's downward swing toward his head. Arthur's right hand shot out to hit Charlie in the throat. The bottle fell from his slack fingers, and Charlie gasped for breath as he backed up and grabbed at his throat. Arthur followed in closely, hands loose and ready to attack if necessary. Charlie didn't seem to grasp that concept, though. He reached behind him to the dresser and grabbed one of the metal objets d'art that Ariadne hadn't paid much attention to. It was heavy and sharp, and he swung it at Arthur's head.
Anticipating that, Arthur ducked under his arm and hit him in the solar plexus. Eames had left O'Rourke on the bed at this point, approaching the scuffling men. Ariadne squeaked when Charlie swung the sculpture toward Eames, but Arthur made a sharp upper cut to his jaw. It allowed Eames to grab his wrist and wrest the sculpture from him. "Just stop," Arthur was saying, frustration evident.
"Listen," Eames began, trying a conciliatory tone.
Charlie wasn't having it. He rushed toward Eames after pushing Arthur in Ariadne's direction. She was able to keep Arthur upright, and shrieked at Charlie to stop attacking them. He ignored her, not noticing the sculpture still in Eames' hand or the bottle of rum on the floor, and he stepped on it. That upset his balance, tipping him forward.
Right into the sharp, extended end of the sculpture.
Ariadne covered her mouth with her hands and watched as Charlie staggered off to the side, crashing into the bed. "Jesus," she muttered, terrified of what would happen. O'Rourke was in shock from the somnacin and now his boyfriend had a sculpture sticking out his chest. What were they supposed to do about this?
Eames knelt at Charlie's side, sighing. "There are better things to do than rush in and be a complete fool," he said. Charlie scuttled backward from him, eyes glazed with pain. He fetched up against the bed, and grasped at the sculpture. At the rasping sound he made, Eames frowned and looked over at Arthur. "I think it punctured a lung."
"He hasn't got long, then," Arthur replied, looking around the room and taking stock of the damage done in the scuffle. He took the microfiber from Ariadne's pocket and used it to remove the sculpture from Charlie's chest. There was a slick sucking sound, and Charlie gurgled a bit, eyes wildly going from Arthur to Eames.
"Thinking of helping him on his way?" Eames asked, voice without inflection.
Ariadne made a soft, horrified sound. She already felt helpless, as if she was a 70's horror movie heroine. "Surely he can get better from that? There's people who live with only one lung..."
Turning toward her, Eames gave her a curious look. "He's seen us, darling. We can't have that."
"His lung is collapsing," Arthur said, beginning to wipe down the sculpture where Eames had grasped it. "That's the sound you hear. He could possibly survive it, yes," he said, looking from the sculpture to Ariadne's stricken expression. "Do you plan to go to prison for this?"
"There has to be something we could do instead..."
Eames shook his head and reached into his jacket. "I'll do it."
Dumbfounded, Ariadne watched Eames take out his USP Compact and thread a suppressor onto the end. He looked at her and then at Arthur meaningfully. "Start the contingency plans, eh?"
"No, I'm not leaving," she insisted. If he could do this, she would have to be able to stand there and watch. She wasn't about to stop him, and she would have to live with knowing about the dark underbelly of dream share.
Arthur slid his hand along her back. "You don't have to stay."
"If you're here, I'm here," she insisted stubbornly.
The gunshot was nothing more than a hiss of air.
Ariadne watched in horror as Arthur helped Eames wrap up the body for disposal. Arthur found a canvas garment bag, but Charlie was far too tall to fit into it neatly. They used one of his belts to tie the bag shut around his legs, and Ariadne busied herself with scrubbing the blood stains from the floor boards. She refused to think about how it got there, how everything had spiraled out of control so quickly.
"Same exit route," Eames said, looking down at the body with his hands on his hips. It wasn't the same cocksure swagger she was used to seeing. "No guards down by the service entrance, so I can haul him out that way." He looked at Ariadne's drawn expression. "I suggest you return to Paris. Keep your head down. You were never here under your own name, after all. No one will think you're involved with this."
"I..."
"You can stay with me," Arthur suggested. "You know where to go, and you'll just have a head start there." He nodded briefly in Eames' direction. "He'll dispose of the body, and I'll meet with our employer. I'll be a day behind you at most."
She felt as if she was falling, drowning in uncertainty. The walls in the room refused to budge, damn this. She was still stuck in reality, and sooner or later would have to cope with the fallout of this job. "Eames... On your own, though..."
He chuckled slightly and then bent down to pick up the limp body in the bag. "It's touching that you worry about me so much. I'll be all right. I'll lie low for a bit, and I suggest you two do the same. If we split up, it'll be that much harder to find us or link us all together. We'll search each other out when it's safe to do so."
Ariadne bit her lip, unable to hide the worry. There was so much she wanted to say, but it felt as if she couldn't push it out in a coherent manner. I'm sorry, she wanted to say, but there was no logical sense to that. Instead, she quickly went to him and pulled him down for a quick kiss on the lips. "You take care of yourself. Promise me you will. I will never forgive you if something happens to you."
Eames slid his free arm around her shoulder. "Always, my darling girl. You're a priority, you realize. I'll make sure we meet again."
She tried not to feel like her heart was breaking when they all went separate ways.
***
Ariadne had three keys on her key ring: her apartment in Paris, Arthur's main safe house in Bonn and Eames' apartment in Mombasa. Arthur didn't have an actual home; he had been on the run with Cobb for nearly three years by the time the Fischer job had begun, and he had maintained the small home in Bonn from a distance as best as he could. It had been his intention to make it a home, and he had an impish smile when he offered it to Ariadne before Eames had showed up in her apartment. "You're just about done with school, and you can do anything you want. There's an entire house that you can make over however you like. If you want to."
Putting the key on her key ring was her answer, but she had grinned up at him and said it in words anyway. "I absolutely want to. I love you, Arthur."
It had been the first time she had said the words aloud and meant it, and Arthur grinned before moving down to kiss her. "I know."
"And?" she prompted in a teasing tone when the kiss ended.
"I love you, too," Arthur murmured in a similarly teasing tone, moving in for another kiss. He had wrapped his arms around her before moving it to the bedroom. He had left on a job hunt two days later, right before Eames had arrived.
It was to this house that Ariadne had gone to, not her Paris apartment. She threw open the windows the air out the house and took a good look around the place. It had an open concept layout for the ground floor, with nondescript but tasteful furniture that looked like it was selected en masse from an Ikea catalogue. It worked with the plain white walls and generic prints framed in black, but gave absolutely no hint of personality. There was no sense of Arthur here, in keeping with the fact that he rarely got a chance to visit it.
Ariadne thought of the massive furniture and metal sculptures all over O'Rourke's home and then winced. While it fit the businessman's personality, she couldn't have anything remotely similar here. Just thinking about it made her remember Charlie, eyes wide and bleeding wounds in his chest before the garment bag had been tied around his lifeless body. She could hear the sound of the suppressed bullet, the thud of his head against O'Rourke's bed.
She felt sick, her gorge ready to rise. She stumbled to a bathroom and vomited bile; she had been too nervous to eat much prior to arriving in Bonn.
The house was piteously empty of anything making it resemble a home. There was no food stocked and very little to clean up some of the dust. The next several hours went by in a flurry of activity, buying food she didn't really want to eat and scrubbing down every surface she could think of. Arthur's coming home soon, she kept thinking, deliberately trying to distract herself from memories of Charlie's death. When the house was as clean as she could make it, she turned to sketching ideas for each room of the house. Draft work was methodical and comforting, something she could do almost as a meditation.
Ariadne cried herself to sleep alone in Arthur's bed that night, worrying herself sick about him and Eames. While he had said he was at most a day behind her, it was Arthur. He was scarily efficient and ruthless when he had to be, and she never truly believed that it would take him that long to deal with their employers. Her mind spun in useless circles, imagining them shooting Arthur to cover their tracks. Or perhaps O'Rourke somehow knew who he was and got even with him for Charlie's death. Or someone saw Eames getting rid of the body and traced him back to O'Rourke's home, and from there tracked down Arthur. Or...
She startled awake when there was a noisy crash near the bedroom door, something like the sound of a bag being tossed aside. She had no weapons other than her fists, but the shape in the dim light was far too familiar for her to strike at. Though she knew she was in reality, she pulled at the corners of the room, just in case.
Thankfully, they held fast.
Launching herself forward, she clutched the exhausted Arthur tightly. "Thank God, you made it back home safely."
He touched her arms around his chest gingerly, leaning backward into her a little. The way he moved spoke of a physical ache as well as mental weariness; she wondered if he had gotten into a fight or two after all. "I told you I'd get back to you." He turned to look at her, lips quirked into a smile. "You didn't have to worry about me."
Squeezing him tightly, Ariadne buried her face into the crook of his neck. "Of course I worry about you. I will always worry about you. I love you. And after this job..."
Arthur sighed and turned around, forcing her to release him and look at him. It was too dark to see his expression accurately, but she was sure it wasn't pity there. "You've seen the best and worst that dream share has to offer," he told her gently. "Inception is like the Holy Grail to the field, and you helped make it happen. No one got hurt topside and even the damage done inside of the dream was fixed by the time we all woke up. That is the best case scenario. And then what happened in Dublin was the worst case. The extraction was botched because of the allergy, the death, having to escape that way..." He shook his head ruefully. "It was a clusterfuck as far as jobs go, but they usually don't end up this way. Usually you plan well enough to go in, get what you need, get out. No one is the wiser, and then we get paid."
It was the challenge of the planning and mental acrobatics involved that Arthur loved. The money just meant that he could wait for jobs rather than scrounge around in the seedy underbelly of the world. So few legitimate jobs gave him the same thrill of the chase as dream share did, and Ariadne had to admit, that thrill was infectious.
"Is that supposed to be a warning?" she asked, a warble in her voice she hadn't wanted to hear.
"You need to know what you're getting into."
"I want to build," she said, hearing the plaintive note to her voice. The rest of it could go hang. Maybe she simply wouldn't go into the field again, and would be more like Yusuf. Players in dream share could visit her for their maps and mazes, and she would have limited risk.
She could see Arthur smile, shadows shifting around his face. "I know. Watching your dreams come to life is amazing. It was beautiful in there once it was populated, you know. I'm selfish enough to want you to stay just for that."
"I can stay behind. I don't have to go with you when the extracting is done."
Arthur nodded. "There would be less risk to you that way."
"You can figure out something, I'm sure of it."
Challenge accepted, if the lift of his chin was any indication. "Likely," he agreed before nodding at her. He dropped a kiss onto her forehead. "Let's go to bed."
"I'm not exactly in the mood right now," Ariadne began with a sigh.
Arthur laughed gently and shook his head. "Just sleep now. There's time enough for that in the morning, when we're rested and can really enjoy it."
That was the best idea Ariadne had heard in a while. Exhausted, the two of them cuddled close in the bed and slept.
Neither had natural dreams.
***
***
To Chapter Four - Cruel Happiness
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur/Eames (and all permutations within the trio)
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. His toys are fun to play with!
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Written for the 2013 Reverse Bang in response to piece #203, beautifulweddin's art. Incorporates the inception_kink meme prompt in round 20: Eames has always used forging as his totem. Concerned that Ariadne, new to dreaming, is being taught to rely on something that failed Cobb so miserably (a physical totem of reality), he takes over her tutelage and has her use her ability to fold architecture as hers.
Summary: Ariadne fell in love with dreaming and building, and was determined to stay within the business as best as she could. Falling in love with Arthur and Eames shouldn't have made that more difficult to do.
Prior chapters:
One - The Swimming Lad
Two - Body To Body
Three - Plunging Down
Having both Arthur and Eames in the same hotel room with Ariadne in Dublin was terribly distracting. Eames always had a penchant for teasing, but now it was more overtly sexual than before. Her cheeks flamed hot, and it was far too easy for either of them to tell what she was thinking. She was all too eager to play into their fantasies and have them act out her own. Eames could bend her over the edge of the bed and take her from behind as she sucked on Arthur's cock. He cradled her head in his hands when she took him into her mouth as Arthur watched, massaging her flesh until she was wet enough for him to enter her. Or Arthur would make love to her slowly as Eames watched, jerking off with a smug smile on his face. Eames was fascinated with the planes of Arthur's body, doing whatever he could to bring Arthur to mind shattering release. When passions cooled a little, the three would start to discuss the extraction of banking codes from a businessman that had cheated the partners he bought out.
This was perfect. It was everything that Ariadne had hoped it would be. As much as she had fallen into this life completely by accident, it was as if she had waited for this her whole life. There was no reason to return to the United States; her parents were divorced and neither had much interaction with her since she started college. Each had remarried and had other children they worried about, and Ariadne had never really gotten along with any of her half siblings. She was always the odd one out, the artsy girl with lofty dreams no one else understood. Going to Paris had been a relief for everyone in her family, and no one seemed to notice when she didn't return for holidays. It was sad, but there were no ties to cut in order to stay on the move with Arthur and Eames.
Arthur was planning to take her to the theater that evening, leaving Eames in the hotel room to go through the data that they had on the subject. He wanted to figure out a way to get the three of them alone with O'Rourke, then out of the way before he woke up. The man's home was possibly the best bet; it was a large, gated house not too far from Dublin with good security teams hired to keep him safe, but they kept to the same shifts and could easily be avoided. O'Rourke rightly suspected his former business partners wanted to get even, but he didn't know what they were willing to do. As far as Arthur's contact could tell, O'Rourke had been a bit on the paranoid side even before the buyout, and that had only worsened afterward.
"Go for a long and luxurious dinner after the show," Eames suggested. He was surrounded by photographs and manila folders full of raw data that Arthur had painstakingly put together. "I'll have an answer of some kind by the time you get back."
The play was as good as the reviews had said, dinner was excellent and Ariadne enjoyed an evening of the posh, elite life. It was so very different from a student's life, but one she could enjoy now that she had a hefty Swiss bank account. Arthur had taken over planning and paying for everything so far, but she was going to insist on being an equal partner soon. There was only so much coddling she wanted; sooner or later she would have to prove she was on the same footing and could deal with whatever dream share had to offer.
Eames had taken his own notes and jotted down ideas he had while perusing Arthur's. "I think I have the way into the house," he announced when they returned to the room. He was dressed in nothing but a loose robe barely even tied at the waist. His eyes danced when they returned. "Do go on and have the post-date sex," he teased. "I'll join you in a moment."
"You have a filthy mind, Mr. Eames," Arthur commented, locking the door behind him. He toed off his shoes before starting to remove his jacket and tie.
"You love every depraved corner of it, too," Eames responded, putting aside the folder he was holding. He leaned forward to help Ariadne unzip the back of her dress, and grinned as it fell from her lean frame. "Mmm. You too, I imagine. No knickers tonight?"
Ariadne stepped out of the puddled silk and kicked off her heels. Dressed in just a garter belt and stockings, she did a playful pirouette on her tip toes. "Do you approve, then?"
"Oh, very much so," Eames replied, letting the loose knot at his waist fall completely open.
Arthur removed his cufflinks and shirt, tossing them aside rather carelessly as he hungrily stared at Ariadne. "You know I do," he murmured, sliding his hands around her waist. She shivered at his touch and smiled up at him. "And there you were, teasing me all night..."
Unbuckling his belt, Ariadne made short work of his trousers and underwear. "Get rid of all that. You know what the sight of you in a good suit does."
"I do?" he asked, a playful tilt to his lips. Taunting her further, he bent down to press his lips to her forehead. "Perhaps it's what the sight of you in that dress did to me."
She grasped his cock and stroked it gently. "Yeah, something like that."
It was easy for her to fall into the sensation of Arthur's cock in her hand and his tongue in her mouth as he kissed her. She fell backward onto the bed after Eames moved out of the way, and Arthur hovered over her body. He didn't make any move to fondle her the way he usually did, which was frustrating. When Eames did the honors, it made more sense. Between the two of them, they worked her to a fevered pitch, just on the brink of orgasm. Ariadne groaned in frustrated desire with Eames withdrew his fingers, but that turned into a strangled howl of pleasure as Arthur thrust into her. He rode her hard and fast, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he stared down at her and tried not to come.
Arthur came too quickly, likely because too much teasing and wine with dinner. Eames took his place when he withdrew, making Ariadne moan wantonly. She watched him kiss Arthur as he fucked her slowly, his large hands keeping her hips still. She grasped at his hips and thighs, but he refused to budge or move faster. Her gasped demands didn't affect that languid pace, either. He was determined to leave her breathless and spent, tingling for hours afterward. That wasn't exactly a hardship to endure.
Only when she finally came did Eames pick up the pace. Her throat was dry from gasping and moaning, trying to twist beneath him. She had scratched at him and pulled at the sheets, grasped Arthur when he moved to her side and sucked on her breasts. Eames moved quickly, hips snapping against hers, the sound obscene and hot at once.
He collapsed on top of her afterward, forcing the air from her lungs. He caught a curl around his finger and tugged gently, a tender smile on his lips. "This job will be just as lovely, I think. Your dream and our cunning, in and out, right quick."
"You have a plan for getting into the house, then?" Arthur asked, perking up at Eames' confident tone. Sometimes the forger just needed a little time to let the pieces fall into place. Arthur's style was different, more methodical and reliant on the subject's schedules. Once on a job, however, his background in the military and security companies came in handy.
"Absolutely. Even you would be pleased with it." Eames shifted so that he wasn't crushing Ariadne any longer. She was pressed tightly between the two men, and she gave a soft, contented sigh. "Details in the morning, I think. Our lovely lass is tired."
"I wonder why," she snarked, putting an arm around each one. "Sweet dreams."
"Always," Arthur said, pressing a kiss to her lips. Eames merely smiled and settled to sleep beside her.
***
Getting into O'Rourke's home was as easy as Eames had thought it would be. He and his boyfriend got into an argument that Eames maintained he had nothing to do with starting, though the boyfriend was a known flirt and tended to spend time in clubs as if looking for a quick hookup. O'Rourke was left behind after Charlie stormed off, and he drank himself into a stupor, likely imagining that Charlie would cheat. There was no need for extra sedative; the alcohol and the naturally sedating properties of Yusuf's somnacin were more than enough to keep him under to start the extraction.
Ariadne stayed topside to watch over Arthur and Eames as they went in. She didn't think it would be all that difficult to sit and watch three men sleep. Arthur had agreed, but he was still armed with a Glock 19 under his suit jacket and Eames had brought a USP Compact. At one point while practicing Ariadne's maze, Arthur had taken her aside to give her some training in the basics of firearms handling. As much as his Glock had felt large and unwieldy in her hands, in a pinch she had to know how his pistol fired. The recoil had wound its way up her arm, and her aim was terrible. The only reason she had managed to shoot Mal in the chest was that she had been practically in point blank range and it was a dream. Ariadne had wanted to hurt Mal, and dream mechanics ensured that she did. There were no such safeguards in real life.
For practice, Ariadne reached out with her architect's sense and tried to pull on the corners of the room. They didn't move. She had her bishop in her pocket, and knocking it over felt as real as it had when she first made the totem. Twisting worlds around her in dreams was definitely a skill she couldn't replicate in reality, though it was a nice enough exercise to try. Arthur had tried to borrow a page from her and warp the dream around himself, but he didn't have the same finesse she did. Dreams twisted in chunky clumps, breaking apart the buildings and setting Eames' projections staring at him and reaching for knives. It was only Eames' sheer force of will that kept them from rending him limb from limb.
O'Rourke gasped and twisted after about a minute after the somnacin drip began. Ariadne stopped staring at the walls and looked at him anxiously. Sweat was breaking out, and his mouth open, lips more swollen than before.
Dear God, he was allergic to somnacin.
Panicked, she put the headphones over Arthur's ears and pressed play for the musical cue. She depressed the end button on the PASIV. Another minute had gone by, and O'Rourke's lips were most definitely swollen and an angry red. His breathing was obviously ragged, and she looked around the room. None of Arthur's research had revealed an allergy, but she was almost expecting an EpiPen to magically appear within arm's reach.
But no, this was reality. Things like that only happened in dreams.
Arthur woke, a frown immediately creasing his forehead. "What is it?"
"He's allergic," Ariadne said, pointing to O'Rourke. "Is it going to kill him?"
Eames stirred and looked around with bleary eyes. "That was a nasty drop," he muttered, shaking his head. That tended to happen with sudden exits. His gaze sharpened when he took in Ariadne's pale face and frightened expression. Arthur had his lips pressed tightly together. "Damage control?" he asked, tension evident in his voice.
"Anaphylactic shock. I don't usually keep epinephrine in the PASIV," Arthur said, voice clipped.
"So now what?" Ariadne asked. She'd never dealt with something like this before, and didn't know what to do other than bring O'Rourke to a hospital, which wasn't an option.
"I'll go see if there's something we can use..." Arthur began, heading to O'Rourke's bathroom. A moment later she could hear him banging about in the medicine cabinet, nearly growling in frustration. "Not even a Panadol Night," he reported, coming out into the bedroom. "I know he doesn't see a doctor regularly, but this is fucking ridiculous."
"Right, then," Eames said with a sigh. "Somnacin breaks down quickly, at least. He'll have a wicked hangover and maybe if he's a good boy will swear off the drink."
"He isn't a good boy," Ariadne said, her voice high and nearly hysterical. "That's why we're here digging shit out of his brain."
Eames spun to face her, concern etched on his features. "Breathe, darling. It's not a disaster yet."
Arthur was already unhooking O'Rourke from the PASIV and discarding the used needles in its sharps container. "Pack up, wipe everything down."
Ariadne hadn't touched anything in the bedroom, but had kept track of where Arthur and Eames had been. She used a microfiber cloth to rub at the surfaces, marring any potential fingerprints they might have made. Eames lifted O'Rourke a bit and thumped him roughly on the back to try to help him breathe easier.
The PASIV was packed up neatly and they were ready to go; Eames hadn't been able to get any bank codes but Arthur possibly obtained the routing numbers for which banks that O'Rourke may have hidden his accounts. That would have to do for their employers, but Ariadne couldn't help but worry about it. What else could go wrong?
She shouldn't have thought that. O'Rourke's boyfriend returned to the house, a bottle of rum in hand and his shirt completely undone. "Oi. Who are you lot?" he asked, voice slurred and eyes starting to widen almost comically. "What's he doing with Roger?"
Arthur started toward Charlie, but he swung the bottle at Arthur's head once he realized that Arthur didn't necessarily have good intentions toward him. Ariadne may have screeched a little, but Arthur didn't even flinch. He swept his left arm up, blocking the bottle's downward swing toward his head. Arthur's right hand shot out to hit Charlie in the throat. The bottle fell from his slack fingers, and Charlie gasped for breath as he backed up and grabbed at his throat. Arthur followed in closely, hands loose and ready to attack if necessary. Charlie didn't seem to grasp that concept, though. He reached behind him to the dresser and grabbed one of the metal objets d'art that Ariadne hadn't paid much attention to. It was heavy and sharp, and he swung it at Arthur's head.
Anticipating that, Arthur ducked under his arm and hit him in the solar plexus. Eames had left O'Rourke on the bed at this point, approaching the scuffling men. Ariadne squeaked when Charlie swung the sculpture toward Eames, but Arthur made a sharp upper cut to his jaw. It allowed Eames to grab his wrist and wrest the sculpture from him. "Just stop," Arthur was saying, frustration evident.
"Listen," Eames began, trying a conciliatory tone.
Charlie wasn't having it. He rushed toward Eames after pushing Arthur in Ariadne's direction. She was able to keep Arthur upright, and shrieked at Charlie to stop attacking them. He ignored her, not noticing the sculpture still in Eames' hand or the bottle of rum on the floor, and he stepped on it. That upset his balance, tipping him forward.
Right into the sharp, extended end of the sculpture.
Ariadne covered her mouth with her hands and watched as Charlie staggered off to the side, crashing into the bed. "Jesus," she muttered, terrified of what would happen. O'Rourke was in shock from the somnacin and now his boyfriend had a sculpture sticking out his chest. What were they supposed to do about this?
Eames knelt at Charlie's side, sighing. "There are better things to do than rush in and be a complete fool," he said. Charlie scuttled backward from him, eyes glazed with pain. He fetched up against the bed, and grasped at the sculpture. At the rasping sound he made, Eames frowned and looked over at Arthur. "I think it punctured a lung."
"He hasn't got long, then," Arthur replied, looking around the room and taking stock of the damage done in the scuffle. He took the microfiber from Ariadne's pocket and used it to remove the sculpture from Charlie's chest. There was a slick sucking sound, and Charlie gurgled a bit, eyes wildly going from Arthur to Eames.
"Thinking of helping him on his way?" Eames asked, voice without inflection.
Ariadne made a soft, horrified sound. She already felt helpless, as if she was a 70's horror movie heroine. "Surely he can get better from that? There's people who live with only one lung..."
Turning toward her, Eames gave her a curious look. "He's seen us, darling. We can't have that."
"His lung is collapsing," Arthur said, beginning to wipe down the sculpture where Eames had grasped it. "That's the sound you hear. He could possibly survive it, yes," he said, looking from the sculpture to Ariadne's stricken expression. "Do you plan to go to prison for this?"
"There has to be something we could do instead..."
Eames shook his head and reached into his jacket. "I'll do it."
Dumbfounded, Ariadne watched Eames take out his USP Compact and thread a suppressor onto the end. He looked at her and then at Arthur meaningfully. "Start the contingency plans, eh?"
"No, I'm not leaving," she insisted. If he could do this, she would have to be able to stand there and watch. She wasn't about to stop him, and she would have to live with knowing about the dark underbelly of dream share.
Arthur slid his hand along her back. "You don't have to stay."
"If you're here, I'm here," she insisted stubbornly.
The gunshot was nothing more than a hiss of air.
Ariadne watched in horror as Arthur helped Eames wrap up the body for disposal. Arthur found a canvas garment bag, but Charlie was far too tall to fit into it neatly. They used one of his belts to tie the bag shut around his legs, and Ariadne busied herself with scrubbing the blood stains from the floor boards. She refused to think about how it got there, how everything had spiraled out of control so quickly.
"Same exit route," Eames said, looking down at the body with his hands on his hips. It wasn't the same cocksure swagger she was used to seeing. "No guards down by the service entrance, so I can haul him out that way." He looked at Ariadne's drawn expression. "I suggest you return to Paris. Keep your head down. You were never here under your own name, after all. No one will think you're involved with this."
"I..."
"You can stay with me," Arthur suggested. "You know where to go, and you'll just have a head start there." He nodded briefly in Eames' direction. "He'll dispose of the body, and I'll meet with our employer. I'll be a day behind you at most."
She felt as if she was falling, drowning in uncertainty. The walls in the room refused to budge, damn this. She was still stuck in reality, and sooner or later would have to cope with the fallout of this job. "Eames... On your own, though..."
He chuckled slightly and then bent down to pick up the limp body in the bag. "It's touching that you worry about me so much. I'll be all right. I'll lie low for a bit, and I suggest you two do the same. If we split up, it'll be that much harder to find us or link us all together. We'll search each other out when it's safe to do so."
Ariadne bit her lip, unable to hide the worry. There was so much she wanted to say, but it felt as if she couldn't push it out in a coherent manner. I'm sorry, she wanted to say, but there was no logical sense to that. Instead, she quickly went to him and pulled him down for a quick kiss on the lips. "You take care of yourself. Promise me you will. I will never forgive you if something happens to you."
Eames slid his free arm around her shoulder. "Always, my darling girl. You're a priority, you realize. I'll make sure we meet again."
She tried not to feel like her heart was breaking when they all went separate ways.
***
Ariadne had three keys on her key ring: her apartment in Paris, Arthur's main safe house in Bonn and Eames' apartment in Mombasa. Arthur didn't have an actual home; he had been on the run with Cobb for nearly three years by the time the Fischer job had begun, and he had maintained the small home in Bonn from a distance as best as he could. It had been his intention to make it a home, and he had an impish smile when he offered it to Ariadne before Eames had showed up in her apartment. "You're just about done with school, and you can do anything you want. There's an entire house that you can make over however you like. If you want to."
Putting the key on her key ring was her answer, but she had grinned up at him and said it in words anyway. "I absolutely want to. I love you, Arthur."
It had been the first time she had said the words aloud and meant it, and Arthur grinned before moving down to kiss her. "I know."
"And?" she prompted in a teasing tone when the kiss ended.
"I love you, too," Arthur murmured in a similarly teasing tone, moving in for another kiss. He had wrapped his arms around her before moving it to the bedroom. He had left on a job hunt two days later, right before Eames had arrived.
It was to this house that Ariadne had gone to, not her Paris apartment. She threw open the windows the air out the house and took a good look around the place. It had an open concept layout for the ground floor, with nondescript but tasteful furniture that looked like it was selected en masse from an Ikea catalogue. It worked with the plain white walls and generic prints framed in black, but gave absolutely no hint of personality. There was no sense of Arthur here, in keeping with the fact that he rarely got a chance to visit it.
Ariadne thought of the massive furniture and metal sculptures all over O'Rourke's home and then winced. While it fit the businessman's personality, she couldn't have anything remotely similar here. Just thinking about it made her remember Charlie, eyes wide and bleeding wounds in his chest before the garment bag had been tied around his lifeless body. She could hear the sound of the suppressed bullet, the thud of his head against O'Rourke's bed.
She felt sick, her gorge ready to rise. She stumbled to a bathroom and vomited bile; she had been too nervous to eat much prior to arriving in Bonn.
The house was piteously empty of anything making it resemble a home. There was no food stocked and very little to clean up some of the dust. The next several hours went by in a flurry of activity, buying food she didn't really want to eat and scrubbing down every surface she could think of. Arthur's coming home soon, she kept thinking, deliberately trying to distract herself from memories of Charlie's death. When the house was as clean as she could make it, she turned to sketching ideas for each room of the house. Draft work was methodical and comforting, something she could do almost as a meditation.
Ariadne cried herself to sleep alone in Arthur's bed that night, worrying herself sick about him and Eames. While he had said he was at most a day behind her, it was Arthur. He was scarily efficient and ruthless when he had to be, and she never truly believed that it would take him that long to deal with their employers. Her mind spun in useless circles, imagining them shooting Arthur to cover their tracks. Or perhaps O'Rourke somehow knew who he was and got even with him for Charlie's death. Or someone saw Eames getting rid of the body and traced him back to O'Rourke's home, and from there tracked down Arthur. Or...
She startled awake when there was a noisy crash near the bedroom door, something like the sound of a bag being tossed aside. She had no weapons other than her fists, but the shape in the dim light was far too familiar for her to strike at. Though she knew she was in reality, she pulled at the corners of the room, just in case.
Thankfully, they held fast.
Launching herself forward, she clutched the exhausted Arthur tightly. "Thank God, you made it back home safely."
He touched her arms around his chest gingerly, leaning backward into her a little. The way he moved spoke of a physical ache as well as mental weariness; she wondered if he had gotten into a fight or two after all. "I told you I'd get back to you." He turned to look at her, lips quirked into a smile. "You didn't have to worry about me."
Squeezing him tightly, Ariadne buried her face into the crook of his neck. "Of course I worry about you. I will always worry about you. I love you. And after this job..."
Arthur sighed and turned around, forcing her to release him and look at him. It was too dark to see his expression accurately, but she was sure it wasn't pity there. "You've seen the best and worst that dream share has to offer," he told her gently. "Inception is like the Holy Grail to the field, and you helped make it happen. No one got hurt topside and even the damage done inside of the dream was fixed by the time we all woke up. That is the best case scenario. And then what happened in Dublin was the worst case. The extraction was botched because of the allergy, the death, having to escape that way..." He shook his head ruefully. "It was a clusterfuck as far as jobs go, but they usually don't end up this way. Usually you plan well enough to go in, get what you need, get out. No one is the wiser, and then we get paid."
It was the challenge of the planning and mental acrobatics involved that Arthur loved. The money just meant that he could wait for jobs rather than scrounge around in the seedy underbelly of the world. So few legitimate jobs gave him the same thrill of the chase as dream share did, and Ariadne had to admit, that thrill was infectious.
"Is that supposed to be a warning?" she asked, a warble in her voice she hadn't wanted to hear.
"You need to know what you're getting into."
"I want to build," she said, hearing the plaintive note to her voice. The rest of it could go hang. Maybe she simply wouldn't go into the field again, and would be more like Yusuf. Players in dream share could visit her for their maps and mazes, and she would have limited risk.
She could see Arthur smile, shadows shifting around his face. "I know. Watching your dreams come to life is amazing. It was beautiful in there once it was populated, you know. I'm selfish enough to want you to stay just for that."
"I can stay behind. I don't have to go with you when the extracting is done."
Arthur nodded. "There would be less risk to you that way."
"You can figure out something, I'm sure of it."
Challenge accepted, if the lift of his chin was any indication. "Likely," he agreed before nodding at her. He dropped a kiss onto her forehead. "Let's go to bed."
"I'm not exactly in the mood right now," Ariadne began with a sigh.
Arthur laughed gently and shook his head. "Just sleep now. There's time enough for that in the morning, when we're rested and can really enjoy it."
That was the best idea Ariadne had heard in a while. Exhausted, the two of them cuddled close in the bed and slept.
Neither had natural dreams.
***
***
To Chapter Four - Cruel Happiness