Secondhand Shadow, 2/5. NC-17. Ariadne/Eames.
Title: Secondhand Shadow
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ariadne/Eames.
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan or the DC Universe. I'll put their toys back where I found them when I'm done messing with them :)
Spoilers/Warnings: Crossover of Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. inception_kink meme prompt in round 19: "...And I mean that. It's not just a line."
Summary: Forging involves breaking down the original personality and grafting a new one over it. Eames is one of the best in the business because his forges are flawless. So far, he had managed to avoid any complications or aftereffects from his forges. But forging Bane is a whole new experience, and pushes his skills to the next level. Including Bane bleeding through after the job is done.
Previous chapter:
One - A Job Like No Other
Two - Exploration
Ariadne had gone from being dead asleep to utterly terrified in five seconds flat. Eames had her pressed up against the wall, her wrists caught up in one massive hand. She couldn't imagine why he was acting that way. She was sleeping in the room he had told her to stay in when he had left Mombasa four days before. She had only left the flat to spend time with Yusuf at his office to talk about dream share or to the markets for food. In the intervening hours, she had continued to work on aspects of her thesis that she didn't need to be in Paris to do.
"I don't remember you," he growled, voice low.
Ariadne made a low noise deep in her throat, and she wondered if he was about to kill her. For all of his prior talk of trust and how he wanted to explore a potential relationship, she was suddenly sure that the only thing that would come out of this association was death. All of her curiosity about dream share was going to get her killed
Something shifted in his gaze so that he no longer looked quite as violent. She still couldn't help but feel threatened, even with his soft "Not exactly."
"The job you did. In Gotham City. Was it a success?" she ventured, unable to hide the tremors in her voice. Perhaps she could distract him from whatever had happened that was making him react this way. Something had to have happened in Gotham City, something that made it so that he didn't even recognize her anymore. Ariadne didn't know what that could be, but it had to have been devastating.
Eames gave her a wicked, sinister smile that didn't calm her one bit. "Oh, yes, my dear. Yes. I got everything I needed and more."
"What's that?" she asked, tremulous.
His body was pressed tightly against hers, allowing her to feel all of his taut muscle. Ariadne's breath was shallow as he shifted his footing. His free hand rose along the side of her torso, curling over her shoulders and then tracing the line of her throat. "You're important. I'd forgotten that. I lost sight of a good many things, and haven't followed my true purpose. I won't do that anymore, darling."
Ariadne shivered, looking up at Eames with large eyes. "What is your true purpose, then?"
"I have a grand and glorious purpose. There are great things to be done, associations to tighten, grand works to execute." She couldn't help but shiver again at the sound of execute. "I will take down the corrupt and unworthy, watch it all burn down and then something new and pure will rise again." He stroked her neck gently, eyes smoldering with a mixture of desire and possessiveness. "You're here because you will help me. You are one of the few in the world that can. And I mean that. It's not just a line."
"I believe you."
Neither statement was true.
He closed his lips around her earlobe and sucked gently as his hands slid along her collarbones, fingers dipping below the collar of her shirt. Ariadne held herself very still, not sure what was going on. The cadence of speech hadn't been his own, and neither was his accent. She didn't know enough about dream share or forging to even begin to guess why this was happening, but she could only guess that something had gone wrong during the job. Eames may have returned, but he wasn't entirely Eames anymore.
She shivered at his touch, but he was exceedingly gentle with her. "You're mine, aren't you?" he asked, fingers stroking the rise of her breasts. "Ariadne?"
She couldn't answer him right away. She didn't know what the right answer even was. Eames didn't like that, and moved to slant his mouth over hers. His kiss was punishing and full of need, his tongue pushing into her mouth when she gasped in outrage. She couldn't move him, but there was no sense of panic when she realized that. He wanted her in this crazed scheme of his, and he wouldn't harm her. Eames needed her for some reason, and he was nearly shaking with it as he held her.
"You frighten me," she whispered brokenly when the kiss ended. "I don't know what you want."
The fragile sense that he needed her was confirmed at the stricken expression on his face. He was still hovering over her, her hands caught up in one of his large hands. "You are precious to me, Ariadne. That's why you're here. You're more important than you know."
"This is so confusing," she murmured, playing on the thread of innocence that he accepted.
Eames kissed the top of her head tenderly. "We have great purpose, you and I. You know there are many cities that have grown corrupt and foul." His fingers stroked her skin gently, tracing circles and squares as he looked at her in anticipation. "You're an architect, darling. You build things to last, you know how to lay a foundation properly. And most importantly, you are so very dear to me."
Ariadne's stomach churned. She wasn't stupid, these were Bane's words.
Bringing his hands down her sides, he lifted her up by her waist and kissed her hungrily on the mouth, tongue licking into her. If she could completely divorce her senses from her mind, she could allow herself to be swallowed whole. She could drown in pure sensation, allow his touch to set her on fire. But this wasn't Eames anymore, not really. Bane was in there somewhere, rattling about in his head and twisting his perceptions. Eames' prior feelings for her were now something frightening and strange, making her skin crawl from the wrongness. "Eames," she managed to gasp as he mouthed her jaw.
He carried her to his bed, his massive body covering hers completely. "Yes, darling?"
"This is... too soon," she said, seizing on that feeble excuse. "You just got back..."
"I do not require much sleep," Eames told her, continuing to mouth the curve of her jaw. His breath tickled and made her shiver, and she could feel his lips curl into a sensual smile as he moved to kiss her neck. "You don't need to wake early in the morning, do you?"
"No, but..."
"Excellent." He kissed her again, possessive and intense. Shifting position, he settled between her spread thighs. Eames managed not to give her a smug smile at the shimmy and slight grimace on her face from the stretching. "Am I too large for you, then?"
"Your ego is," Ariadne snarked before she could stop herself, smacking his chest in irritation. It took another moment for her to realize that antagonizing someone embodying the ideals of the League of Shadows was likely a shortcut to being killed. She looked up at him in the awkward, precarious silence that followed.
But he only laughed, wrapping his arms around her and rolling over so that she was lying on top of him. Cheeks flushed, Ariadne looked down into Eames' pleased grin. For a dizzying moment, he looked like himself again, and she couldn't help but lean down and kiss him, her own touch feather light and exploratory. She had wanted to know who he was, what he was about, what things might be like between the two of them. Bane's shadow fell over them now, and anything she might learn was filtered through his experience in Barsad's mind.
Eames' hand trailed down her spine, then slipped beneath her nightshirt. He dragged it up and over the curve of her rear, then slid his fingers under the waistband of her panties. Tracing her sensitive skin, he pulled her hips flush against his as he deepened her tentative kiss. Ariadne tried to pull back a bit, not sure how far this was going to go. Then again, with his thick fingers tracing the bit of skin where her ass met the back of her thigh, odds were really good that he wanted things to go even farther. She wasn't entirely opposed, but this wasn't Eames, not really, and this felt wrong somehow. It was off, just enough to give her pause and wonder if this was actual consent.
"Don't you want this as much as I do?" he asked, amused by the way she pulled back even though her nipples clearly tented the front of her nightshirt. Her lips were parted, her eyes dilated with desire. "Why hesitate?"
"You... We never even dated," she said lamely, shaking her head. Bad excuse, but what else did she have? Vague complaints that he wasn't acting like himself? Who was he anyway? Did she even know that for certain? He was a grifter and a thief, a forger of documents and identities, a man who seamlessly moved through personalities as if rifling through pages of a book. How much had she truly known about him before he had left for Gotham?
But her instincts were good, and they were telling her now not to trust this, to dig deeper into this situation as she had with Cobb. Something was not right about this, and she couldn't feel comfortable until she knew what it was.
Eames snorted playfully, looking and sounding like himself, and she found herself smiling at him almost shyly. "Dates are for the ordinary. And you, my darling, are extraordinary."
"Flatterer."
"But of course." He reached up with one hand to cup a breast beneath her nightshirt. "Go on, take this off. Let me see you."
Her fingers shook a little as she drew the nightshirt over her head, and she felt almost silly. She was petite, with slight, almost boyish curves. She was somewhere between an A and B cup, tended to wear boy short underwear, and avoided frilly frou-frou dressy occasions whenever possible. Maybe she could consider herself pretty if she bothered to put up her hair or put on makeup, but all she saw in the mirror was a woman that looked younger than her age, someone that constantly second guessed her importance to others. Oh, she talked a good game and never let on how nervous or unsure she felt. It made her come across as confident or even arrogant, but deep down she kept wondering when the other shoe would drop and everyone would be able to see her for the helpless idiot she sometimes felt she was.
Eames' touch was gentle, almost reverent. "Beautiful," he murmured, running his fingertips across the skin of her breast. Then he followed the curve underneath the breast to trace a trail down to her navel, then into the waistband of her panties to feel the coarse curls between her legs. He could feel her shiver, and they both knew it wasn't from the cold.
"Eames..."
"You waited here for me, Ariadne," he told her, eyes boring into hers. "You wouldn't wait like this if you didn't want more."
"Well, no," she admitted after a moment. "I suppose I thought you'd wine and dine me."
"Oh, I fully intend to do that, too," he replied, giving her a wolfish grin. He slid his fingers further down into her panties, wrist cocked at an awkward angle. "Be a love and get rid of those, will you?"
"And what about your clothes?" she challenged without thinking.
That wolfish grin was still on his face. "Not to worry, darling. They'll be gone, too."
Her mouth was dry as she shifted position so that she wasn't straddling his waist any longer. She kept her eyes on him as she shimmied her panties down to her knees, then wriggled about to get them off. Eames watched her with ravenous eyes, then efficiently stripped off his own clothing. He held out a hand to her, beckoning for her to come back to his side.
It was an invitation and a threat at once, a promise that she would never be able to back out of.
Ariadne took his hand and let him guide her back to the bed.
Eames let her kneel beside him on the bed, her hands light as they traced the planes of his body, the muscle that usually was hidden beneath loud shirts and ill-fitting suits. She shivered as he traced her body as well, appreciation clear in his touch. It felt almost irreverent to talk, to distract herself from learning how he was built, what he felt like beneath her hands. She leaned down and kissed his stomach, loose tendrils of her hair brushing across his skin and making him sigh in pleasure. Growing bolder, Ariadne mouthed his skin and grasped his burgeoning cock in hand, fingers sliding over the length of him.
He outright groaned when she closed her mouth over his cock, sliding her tongue along the foreskin before using her lips to push it back enough to lick at the head. Eames sucked in a breath and let his fingers ghost over her thigh. After a moment his fingers slid across the front of her thigh until they reached her very center. He traced her folds as she licked along his length, teasing her opening until she was damp. It was odd to be so quiet, nothing but harsh gasps and little moaning sounds. There was no artifice that way, nothing to distract from the sensation of touch and teasing.
Ariadne tilted her hips and shifted her knees on the bed to give Eames better access as she kissed and licked his length, then moved so that she could run her lips along his balls. She closed her eyes and breathed the musky scent of him, wondering if she had well and truly lost her mind. This was happening, really happening, and couldn't help but wonder why she didn't feel more dismay. Eames was and wasn't himself. Was she taking advantage of him?
Fingers sliding into her sheath short circuited that thought. She was tight and wet around his blunt fingers, and her breath caught even as she sucked one of his balls into her mouth. "Oh," she murmured. "That feels good."
"Mmm. I rather hoped so," he replied, a smile in his voice. "You feel as good as you look, my dear," he added, eyelids heavy as he looked at her kneeling form.
Breath ghosting over the damp skin, Ariadne shot him an almost troubled look. It sounded ridiculous, but she didn't want this happening if it wasn't fully Eames in control. "Eames..."
"Darling," he said, steel beneath his husky voice. His fingers curled slightly then scissored inside of her, making her gasp at the sensation. "Don't be nervous. I'll take care of you. I'll always take care of you."
Though the intensity seemed to be more like Bane, the cadence of his words and the expression on his face was all Eames. It did help ease her mind, and Ariadne reached out to caress his cheek without thinking. He turned and caught a fingertip in between his full lips, sucking gently and tracing the pad with his tongue. She curled a fist around his cock and squeezed, making him smile indulgently at her. She couldn't help but lock eyes with him, watching his reaction as she stroked him and squeezed the fingers inside her. Ariadne watched as he let her fingers fall from his lips so that he could rise up slightly. He pulled her down so that their mouths met in a fevered kiss, and she tightened her grip on his cock when she lost her balance and nearly fell forward. He let out a little groan that wasn't exactly one of pain.
"Sorry!" she squeaked, pulling back and looking at him with large, startled eyes.
Eames gave her a wolfish grin. "I'm not."
Pulling his fingers from her, he licked them clean and watched her reaction. Ariadne's breath caught at the sight, her lips parted and eyes still wide and luminous in the half light. That same grin on his face, Eames moved forward in a deliciously menacing way before pushing her onto her back. Sprawled sideway across his bed, Ariadne propped herself up on her elbows to track his approach. They kept watching each other, gauging reactions, testing each other. She couldn't help but wonder if she was passing or failing.
Catching hold of her hips, Eames parted her legs and then bent his head between them to lick at her in earnest. She made a low moaning sound and pulled her legs a little wider to accommodate his shoulders, shifting her balance to one elbow so she could run her fingers through his hair. It felt dirty watching him go down on her, something she had never done with previous lovers if they bothered to do this. Somehow she couldn't look away from him, had to track his every movement. While she usually let her eyes fall shut and basked in sensory input, she couldn't do that now. You belong to me, don't you? she thought dizzily, gasping as his tongue flicked against her clit before plunging deep inside. Whatever had happened to him in Gotham City, it only seemed to strengthen the tenuous tie they had before he left.
Her orgasm crashed into her before she could decide how to feel about that.
Eames didn't stop licking at her, and slid a finger inside her when he sucked at her clit. Ariadne bucked against his mouth and nearly howled in pleasure, her fingernails scratching at his scalp as she clutched at his hair. He chuckled as she twisted, back arching and breath coming in short gasps. Licking his lips he looked at her, eyes dancing in amusement. "Should I stop, darling?" he drawled, sounding exactly like the Eames Ariadne had known.
"Don't you dare," she hissed, pushing the back of his head back down. He complied readily, licking and pumping his fingers inside of her in a steady rhythm. She found herself begging for him to fuck her, only dimly aware of her pleading. When Eames' jaw ached, he continued with his fingers until her tense body seemed to dissolve into another orgasm.
He pushed into her then, stretching her legs wide and immediately making her gasp at the fullness of him. Eames laughed as he looked down on her splayed body, cheeks flushed and mouth dropped open in a strangled gasp for air. "Oh, yes. This is real."
It was an odd thing for him to say, but then he was driving into her at a rapid pace. Ariadne held onto him and ran her hands over his chest and arms, feeling the muscle flex beneath the skin. She couldn't even think under the intensity of his gaze, and it felt as if he would swallow her whole if he could. The sensation didn't feel as menacing as when he had her pinned to the wall, but more like a sense of possessiveness. Everything seemed to end too soon, and she looked up at Eames' relaxed and blissful expression as he came.
This was him, without question, but there were enough flashes of Bane to make her feel uncomfortable at times.
He pulled her close after he pulled out, tucking her firmly against his chest and holding her in place. That they were both sticky and sweaty didn't seem to matter. "This is where you belong," he murmured into her hair with that odd cadence to his words.
Ariadne shivered despite the heat radiating off of his body. She was going to have to figure out what the hell was going on before it progressed any further.
***
While Eames had "urgent business" somewhere in Mombasa, Ariadne scurried over to Yusuf's dream den as quickly as she could. He took one look at her expression and the joke he was about to make instantly disappeared. "What is it?"
"Eames is different. He's back in Mombasa now, just came back last night." She dropped into a chair beside his and absently glanced at one of his cats sidling up to her leg. Instead of giving it a stroke as she usually did while visiting Yusuf, she turned her golden brown eyes toward her friend, biting her lip. "He sounded like Bane and was almost acting like him," she admitted in a soft tone. For a moment, Ariadne almost felt as if saying the name might bring Eames toward her like a magnet. "It was frightening."
Yusuf folded his hands together and his brows furrowed as he thought. "I'm not a forger," he began slowly, obviously thinking furiously as he spoke to try to comfort her. "Not in any sense of the word, you must understand."
"I do. But you're also his friend. You've known him a long time."
"We're very good colleagues, not privy to each others' secrets. I do believe you've shown far more interest than he has, so you've uncovered a lot more in the few short months we've known each other in Paris than in the years I've known him before."
Ariadne wanted to roll her eyes and huff impatiently, but she had already learned the hard way that Yusuf often simply refused to be hurried. He would tell his stories at his own pace, and wouldn't rush to the finish just to satisfy her curiosity. "Because I'm interested in learning things and getting to the bottom of everything."
"Yes. And while I'm less obvious about it, Ariadne, I am the same way. But since I'm less obvious about it, my knowledge may be imperfect." He waited until she nodded that she understood. "A different forger once told me how difficult it could be sometimes to get the forges exactly right. Small mannerisms, phrasing of speech, that sort of thing. It's more than just an appearance. An entire personality and history must be replicated as well. For her, she felt that becoming the person she was trying to forge was the way to make it real for the subject, to take everything in and think, move, act and respond like the forge. This left her wide open for actually taking on mannerisms after the forge was complete, however. She called it character bleed, when parts of her forge came home with her, so to speak. Enough time as herself in between forges helped to minimize that, because she thought of it as damage to her psyche."
"So that's what's going on now? Character bleed? Eames brought home aspects of Bane's personality?" she asked, feeling as though that was a perfect explanation for why he couldn't recognize her at first.
"It could be. I don't know how common that is or if that's even how Eames does his forgery. I know he follows his targets and tries to observe them in their natural habitats, goes into their homes if he can to see the little details that he can use to craft his illusions once he's under in the dream. It's an art, he said, and I do believe that it is. So much of what we do is delicate and fragile, requiring a deft hand to bring it all together. We're artists, all of us, and so the process is always going to be a little bit different."
"But this makes sense, then," Ariadne murmured, looking at him with something like hope. "If it's just speech or how he holds himself, it should go away. Your friend was able to come back to herself and not be who she was forging herself as."
"Time is crucial, as is the knowledge that it's happening," Yusuf told her gently. "That's if this is even what's happening. I haven't seen Eames yet, and Arthur was point on that particular job. He might know something more."
Ariadne nodded at him. "Thank you, Yusuf. At least I don't have to worry about some kind of disaster happening."
"Oh, that doesn't mean this isn't a disaster," he chided her gently.
"Why? What happened to your friend?"
"She became the thing she was forging completely one day. My friend disappeared and never woke up again." He stood up and gave a sad smile when Ariadne gawked at him in surprise, mouth parting as if she wanted to say something but didn't know what would be appreciated at that time. "These things don't always end well, Ariadne. There are no guarantees when you work as far afield of the mainstream as we do."
"So what do I do?" she asked, standing as well.
Yusuf guided her to his door. "Be patient, and go back to Paris. Get your own life in order, complete your thesis. Figure out if you truly want to work in this field, without his influence or mine. This likely won't be the last complication with him."
"Are you warning me away from him?"
"You're my friend, Ariadne," Yusuf told her firmly. "I'd be a very poor one if I didn't at least make the attempt. He's dangerous on his own, and having Bane bleed through will only make him even more dangerous." He realized that she might not follow his advice, but at least he had given it. Ariadne had to make her own decisions and come to her own conclusions. "Think carefully about that. You were not part of any illegal activity before becoming part of the Fischer job, and I think Cobb gave you an inaccurate picture of what dream share might be."
"Like he never told us about the risk of limbo."
Yusuf winced. "I thought he would heed my warnings and tell you all individually. Looking back, I should have mentioned it at one of the planning meetings, but I was still trying to tailor the compounds to what we needed."
"It's a lot to keep track of," Ariadne said diplomatically as he opened the door.
Laughing softly, there was an almost sad edge to it. "Yes, sometimes. But it should serve as a warning to you: none of us can be trusted completely, even me."
With that in mind, Ariadne called Arthur as soon as she was back in Eames' apartment. He was still out for the day and wouldn't hear her discussing him. Once the usual pleasantries were made, Ariadne immediately asked his opinion of Eames after the job. Arthur was silent for a long moment. "We didn't really talk much. The idea was to do the job and get out as fast as possible to avoid detection. Why?"
"He got back acting like Bane and didn't recognize me," Ariadne told him. She ran a hand through her hair, tugging on it gently in frustration. "Has something like that ever happened before that you know of?"
"To Eames?"
"To anyone," Ariadne corrected, feeling as though her patience was worn thin. Arthur had always been a man made up of different layers of secrets, holding them so very close and keeping people at bay with them. During the six days they had on the first level of the Fischer job, Ariadne and Arthur talked about a lot of different things, including that kiss on the hotel level, but it never seemed to progress further than that. She had thought at first that he had more than professional interest in mind, but he had never really responded when she came onto him during those six days. He remained friendly and cared about her wellbeing when it seemed as though some of Fischer's projections were acting up, but he didn't cross that invisible line between them again.
She had been disappointed at the time, but now it was perhaps for the best. She didn't think Eames would appreciate any romantic interest from Arthur.
The pause on the other end of the line was long and awkward, making Ariadne almost think that Arthur wasn't going to answer. "There are a lot of secrets I can't openly discuss," Arthur said finally, reminding her of Yusuf's slow beginning not that long ago.
"I understand that. You don't need to name names for me, and I won't know who you're talking about since I've only worked on one job."
Arthur sighed at the frustrated tone in her voice. "Yes, but I wouldn't want to drag you further into this. You still have a chance to get out, have a normal life. You don't have to do this, Ariadne. The Fischer job went well, with no physical dangers. The same can't be said for the rest of dream share."
She thought of Eames' return, his hand on her throat and how he had pinned her to the wall of his apartment while she was still half asleep. "I know," she told him, voice grave. "Believe me, I'm well aware of what the risks can be."
That alerted him to the possibility of more she hadn't told him, but the knowledge that Eames had acted like Bane was enough to get Arthur's mind going. "How badly did he hurt you?" he asked, voice sharp in concern.
"He didn't, not like that." Ariadne closed her eyes and sighed. "It was just frightening to think he could change so fast, be someone else and not himself. So how often does that happen?"
"Ariadne, you need to back out of whatever job you're doing with Eames, then. I told him he shouldn't have called you. You shouldn't be involved, it's too dangerous."
"The chivalry's a little too late and a little misplaced," she said, understanding now why Arthur had never pressed his advantage on the first level. It didn't surprise her in the least that he and Eames had discussed her before she had flown to Mombasa. "I'd already told you I couldn't stay away. Too late for that now. I'm still at the edges of dream share."
Arthur heaved a pained sigh. He was silent for a long moment, and she could almost make out a faint tapping, as if his pen was beating a rhythm out along one of his Moleskines. "All right. I know of two other really good forgers. I don't pretend to understand how they do what they do, and I don't want to know. But one of them went insane and was institutionalized in Bonn, needing medications in order to function again. He can't ever forge and dropped out of dream share in order to stay sane. The rumor that went around at the time was that he became his target so fully that he lost his true identity. There was no recovering it, not until he had ECT and massive amounts of medication."
Ariadne was holding the phone with a tight grip, barely able to breathe. "Does that happen often, then? That sort of thing," she clarified, tongue tripping over the words in her horror.
What if Eames never truly recovered from this?
"I don't know. Forging like that is a rare talent. Most aren't that good and can't really fool the subject of the dream for very long." Arthur paused. "I can try to look into what happened, see what I missed in Gotham City. I don't like the idea of you near Eames if something like this happened to him. You have to stay safe."
Ariadne nodded even though he couldn't see her. "I fully intend to be," she assured him. "That's why I'm trying to figure out what I'm dealing with."
"Fair enough." Arthur's voice softened. "Just... Don't do what you did with Cobb, okay? He tolerated that because he always breaks the rules that most people keep. There's a reason why most in the field holds to those rules, though."
"I won't go digging around in his head," Ariadne promised. "It's just that Cobb constantly sounded like there was something dangerous he wasn't telling me, and no one else seemed to see it. I like you guys. I couldn't let something bad happen if I could stop it."
"Well, you coming along with us was probably what saved the entire job, so I'm glad you did. But whatever is going on now is far more dangerous, Ariadne. Do whatever you need to do in order to stay safe."
She froze at his concerned tone. "You think he's that dangerous?"
"I think if he became someone else, you need to be alert." Arthur paused. "It's the League of Shadows I'm concerned about. They are very dangerous, Ariadne. I can't stress that enough, and they are not beholden to any nation. They're law unto themselves. I'll do what I can on my end to look into things and get back to you."
"Thank you, Arthur," Ariadne replied, relieved. "And you stay safe, too. Don't put yourself into danger for me, okay?"
Arthur chuckled. "Forever being protective? I'll be fine. I've had training for all sorts of dangerous scenarios."
But even after getting off the phone, Ariadne couldn't shake the feeling that she had set something into motion that she shouldn't have.
***
***
To Chapter Three - Establishing New Rules
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ariadne/Eames.
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan or the DC Universe. I'll put their toys back where I found them when I'm done messing with them :)
Spoilers/Warnings: Crossover of Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. inception_kink meme prompt in round 19: "...And I mean that. It's not just a line."
Summary: Forging involves breaking down the original personality and grafting a new one over it. Eames is one of the best in the business because his forges are flawless. So far, he had managed to avoid any complications or aftereffects from his forges. But forging Bane is a whole new experience, and pushes his skills to the next level. Including Bane bleeding through after the job is done.
Previous chapter:
One - A Job Like No Other
Two - Exploration
Ariadne had gone from being dead asleep to utterly terrified in five seconds flat. Eames had her pressed up against the wall, her wrists caught up in one massive hand. She couldn't imagine why he was acting that way. She was sleeping in the room he had told her to stay in when he had left Mombasa four days before. She had only left the flat to spend time with Yusuf at his office to talk about dream share or to the markets for food. In the intervening hours, she had continued to work on aspects of her thesis that she didn't need to be in Paris to do.
"I don't remember you," he growled, voice low.
Ariadne made a low noise deep in her throat, and she wondered if he was about to kill her. For all of his prior talk of trust and how he wanted to explore a potential relationship, she was suddenly sure that the only thing that would come out of this association was death. All of her curiosity about dream share was going to get her killed
Something shifted in his gaze so that he no longer looked quite as violent. She still couldn't help but feel threatened, even with his soft "Not exactly."
"The job you did. In Gotham City. Was it a success?" she ventured, unable to hide the tremors in her voice. Perhaps she could distract him from whatever had happened that was making him react this way. Something had to have happened in Gotham City, something that made it so that he didn't even recognize her anymore. Ariadne didn't know what that could be, but it had to have been devastating.
Eames gave her a wicked, sinister smile that didn't calm her one bit. "Oh, yes, my dear. Yes. I got everything I needed and more."
"What's that?" she asked, tremulous.
His body was pressed tightly against hers, allowing her to feel all of his taut muscle. Ariadne's breath was shallow as he shifted his footing. His free hand rose along the side of her torso, curling over her shoulders and then tracing the line of her throat. "You're important. I'd forgotten that. I lost sight of a good many things, and haven't followed my true purpose. I won't do that anymore, darling."
Ariadne shivered, looking up at Eames with large eyes. "What is your true purpose, then?"
"I have a grand and glorious purpose. There are great things to be done, associations to tighten, grand works to execute." She couldn't help but shiver again at the sound of execute. "I will take down the corrupt and unworthy, watch it all burn down and then something new and pure will rise again." He stroked her neck gently, eyes smoldering with a mixture of desire and possessiveness. "You're here because you will help me. You are one of the few in the world that can. And I mean that. It's not just a line."
"I believe you."
Neither statement was true.
He closed his lips around her earlobe and sucked gently as his hands slid along her collarbones, fingers dipping below the collar of her shirt. Ariadne held herself very still, not sure what was going on. The cadence of speech hadn't been his own, and neither was his accent. She didn't know enough about dream share or forging to even begin to guess why this was happening, but she could only guess that something had gone wrong during the job. Eames may have returned, but he wasn't entirely Eames anymore.
She shivered at his touch, but he was exceedingly gentle with her. "You're mine, aren't you?" he asked, fingers stroking the rise of her breasts. "Ariadne?"
She couldn't answer him right away. She didn't know what the right answer even was. Eames didn't like that, and moved to slant his mouth over hers. His kiss was punishing and full of need, his tongue pushing into her mouth when she gasped in outrage. She couldn't move him, but there was no sense of panic when she realized that. He wanted her in this crazed scheme of his, and he wouldn't harm her. Eames needed her for some reason, and he was nearly shaking with it as he held her.
"You frighten me," she whispered brokenly when the kiss ended. "I don't know what you want."
The fragile sense that he needed her was confirmed at the stricken expression on his face. He was still hovering over her, her hands caught up in one of his large hands. "You are precious to me, Ariadne. That's why you're here. You're more important than you know."
"This is so confusing," she murmured, playing on the thread of innocence that he accepted.
Eames kissed the top of her head tenderly. "We have great purpose, you and I. You know there are many cities that have grown corrupt and foul." His fingers stroked her skin gently, tracing circles and squares as he looked at her in anticipation. "You're an architect, darling. You build things to last, you know how to lay a foundation properly. And most importantly, you are so very dear to me."
Ariadne's stomach churned. She wasn't stupid, these were Bane's words.
Bringing his hands down her sides, he lifted her up by her waist and kissed her hungrily on the mouth, tongue licking into her. If she could completely divorce her senses from her mind, she could allow herself to be swallowed whole. She could drown in pure sensation, allow his touch to set her on fire. But this wasn't Eames anymore, not really. Bane was in there somewhere, rattling about in his head and twisting his perceptions. Eames' prior feelings for her were now something frightening and strange, making her skin crawl from the wrongness. "Eames," she managed to gasp as he mouthed her jaw.
He carried her to his bed, his massive body covering hers completely. "Yes, darling?"
"This is... too soon," she said, seizing on that feeble excuse. "You just got back..."
"I do not require much sleep," Eames told her, continuing to mouth the curve of her jaw. His breath tickled and made her shiver, and she could feel his lips curl into a sensual smile as he moved to kiss her neck. "You don't need to wake early in the morning, do you?"
"No, but..."
"Excellent." He kissed her again, possessive and intense. Shifting position, he settled between her spread thighs. Eames managed not to give her a smug smile at the shimmy and slight grimace on her face from the stretching. "Am I too large for you, then?"
"Your ego is," Ariadne snarked before she could stop herself, smacking his chest in irritation. It took another moment for her to realize that antagonizing someone embodying the ideals of the League of Shadows was likely a shortcut to being killed. She looked up at him in the awkward, precarious silence that followed.
But he only laughed, wrapping his arms around her and rolling over so that she was lying on top of him. Cheeks flushed, Ariadne looked down into Eames' pleased grin. For a dizzying moment, he looked like himself again, and she couldn't help but lean down and kiss him, her own touch feather light and exploratory. She had wanted to know who he was, what he was about, what things might be like between the two of them. Bane's shadow fell over them now, and anything she might learn was filtered through his experience in Barsad's mind.
Eames' hand trailed down her spine, then slipped beneath her nightshirt. He dragged it up and over the curve of her rear, then slid his fingers under the waistband of her panties. Tracing her sensitive skin, he pulled her hips flush against his as he deepened her tentative kiss. Ariadne tried to pull back a bit, not sure how far this was going to go. Then again, with his thick fingers tracing the bit of skin where her ass met the back of her thigh, odds were really good that he wanted things to go even farther. She wasn't entirely opposed, but this wasn't Eames, not really, and this felt wrong somehow. It was off, just enough to give her pause and wonder if this was actual consent.
"Don't you want this as much as I do?" he asked, amused by the way she pulled back even though her nipples clearly tented the front of her nightshirt. Her lips were parted, her eyes dilated with desire. "Why hesitate?"
"You... We never even dated," she said lamely, shaking her head. Bad excuse, but what else did she have? Vague complaints that he wasn't acting like himself? Who was he anyway? Did she even know that for certain? He was a grifter and a thief, a forger of documents and identities, a man who seamlessly moved through personalities as if rifling through pages of a book. How much had she truly known about him before he had left for Gotham?
But her instincts were good, and they were telling her now not to trust this, to dig deeper into this situation as she had with Cobb. Something was not right about this, and she couldn't feel comfortable until she knew what it was.
Eames snorted playfully, looking and sounding like himself, and she found herself smiling at him almost shyly. "Dates are for the ordinary. And you, my darling, are extraordinary."
"Flatterer."
"But of course." He reached up with one hand to cup a breast beneath her nightshirt. "Go on, take this off. Let me see you."
Her fingers shook a little as she drew the nightshirt over her head, and she felt almost silly. She was petite, with slight, almost boyish curves. She was somewhere between an A and B cup, tended to wear boy short underwear, and avoided frilly frou-frou dressy occasions whenever possible. Maybe she could consider herself pretty if she bothered to put up her hair or put on makeup, but all she saw in the mirror was a woman that looked younger than her age, someone that constantly second guessed her importance to others. Oh, she talked a good game and never let on how nervous or unsure she felt. It made her come across as confident or even arrogant, but deep down she kept wondering when the other shoe would drop and everyone would be able to see her for the helpless idiot she sometimes felt she was.
Eames' touch was gentle, almost reverent. "Beautiful," he murmured, running his fingertips across the skin of her breast. Then he followed the curve underneath the breast to trace a trail down to her navel, then into the waistband of her panties to feel the coarse curls between her legs. He could feel her shiver, and they both knew it wasn't from the cold.
"Eames..."
"You waited here for me, Ariadne," he told her, eyes boring into hers. "You wouldn't wait like this if you didn't want more."
"Well, no," she admitted after a moment. "I suppose I thought you'd wine and dine me."
"Oh, I fully intend to do that, too," he replied, giving her a wolfish grin. He slid his fingers further down into her panties, wrist cocked at an awkward angle. "Be a love and get rid of those, will you?"
"And what about your clothes?" she challenged without thinking.
That wolfish grin was still on his face. "Not to worry, darling. They'll be gone, too."
Her mouth was dry as she shifted position so that she wasn't straddling his waist any longer. She kept her eyes on him as she shimmied her panties down to her knees, then wriggled about to get them off. Eames watched her with ravenous eyes, then efficiently stripped off his own clothing. He held out a hand to her, beckoning for her to come back to his side.
It was an invitation and a threat at once, a promise that she would never be able to back out of.
Ariadne took his hand and let him guide her back to the bed.
Eames let her kneel beside him on the bed, her hands light as they traced the planes of his body, the muscle that usually was hidden beneath loud shirts and ill-fitting suits. She shivered as he traced her body as well, appreciation clear in his touch. It felt almost irreverent to talk, to distract herself from learning how he was built, what he felt like beneath her hands. She leaned down and kissed his stomach, loose tendrils of her hair brushing across his skin and making him sigh in pleasure. Growing bolder, Ariadne mouthed his skin and grasped his burgeoning cock in hand, fingers sliding over the length of him.
He outright groaned when she closed her mouth over his cock, sliding her tongue along the foreskin before using her lips to push it back enough to lick at the head. Eames sucked in a breath and let his fingers ghost over her thigh. After a moment his fingers slid across the front of her thigh until they reached her very center. He traced her folds as she licked along his length, teasing her opening until she was damp. It was odd to be so quiet, nothing but harsh gasps and little moaning sounds. There was no artifice that way, nothing to distract from the sensation of touch and teasing.
Ariadne tilted her hips and shifted her knees on the bed to give Eames better access as she kissed and licked his length, then moved so that she could run her lips along his balls. She closed her eyes and breathed the musky scent of him, wondering if she had well and truly lost her mind. This was happening, really happening, and couldn't help but wonder why she didn't feel more dismay. Eames was and wasn't himself. Was she taking advantage of him?
Fingers sliding into her sheath short circuited that thought. She was tight and wet around his blunt fingers, and her breath caught even as she sucked one of his balls into her mouth. "Oh," she murmured. "That feels good."
"Mmm. I rather hoped so," he replied, a smile in his voice. "You feel as good as you look, my dear," he added, eyelids heavy as he looked at her kneeling form.
Breath ghosting over the damp skin, Ariadne shot him an almost troubled look. It sounded ridiculous, but she didn't want this happening if it wasn't fully Eames in control. "Eames..."
"Darling," he said, steel beneath his husky voice. His fingers curled slightly then scissored inside of her, making her gasp at the sensation. "Don't be nervous. I'll take care of you. I'll always take care of you."
Though the intensity seemed to be more like Bane, the cadence of his words and the expression on his face was all Eames. It did help ease her mind, and Ariadne reached out to caress his cheek without thinking. He turned and caught a fingertip in between his full lips, sucking gently and tracing the pad with his tongue. She curled a fist around his cock and squeezed, making him smile indulgently at her. She couldn't help but lock eyes with him, watching his reaction as she stroked him and squeezed the fingers inside her. Ariadne watched as he let her fingers fall from his lips so that he could rise up slightly. He pulled her down so that their mouths met in a fevered kiss, and she tightened her grip on his cock when she lost her balance and nearly fell forward. He let out a little groan that wasn't exactly one of pain.
"Sorry!" she squeaked, pulling back and looking at him with large, startled eyes.
Eames gave her a wolfish grin. "I'm not."
Pulling his fingers from her, he licked them clean and watched her reaction. Ariadne's breath caught at the sight, her lips parted and eyes still wide and luminous in the half light. That same grin on his face, Eames moved forward in a deliciously menacing way before pushing her onto her back. Sprawled sideway across his bed, Ariadne propped herself up on her elbows to track his approach. They kept watching each other, gauging reactions, testing each other. She couldn't help but wonder if she was passing or failing.
Catching hold of her hips, Eames parted her legs and then bent his head between them to lick at her in earnest. She made a low moaning sound and pulled her legs a little wider to accommodate his shoulders, shifting her balance to one elbow so she could run her fingers through his hair. It felt dirty watching him go down on her, something she had never done with previous lovers if they bothered to do this. Somehow she couldn't look away from him, had to track his every movement. While she usually let her eyes fall shut and basked in sensory input, she couldn't do that now. You belong to me, don't you? she thought dizzily, gasping as his tongue flicked against her clit before plunging deep inside. Whatever had happened to him in Gotham City, it only seemed to strengthen the tenuous tie they had before he left.
Her orgasm crashed into her before she could decide how to feel about that.
Eames didn't stop licking at her, and slid a finger inside her when he sucked at her clit. Ariadne bucked against his mouth and nearly howled in pleasure, her fingernails scratching at his scalp as she clutched at his hair. He chuckled as she twisted, back arching and breath coming in short gasps. Licking his lips he looked at her, eyes dancing in amusement. "Should I stop, darling?" he drawled, sounding exactly like the Eames Ariadne had known.
"Don't you dare," she hissed, pushing the back of his head back down. He complied readily, licking and pumping his fingers inside of her in a steady rhythm. She found herself begging for him to fuck her, only dimly aware of her pleading. When Eames' jaw ached, he continued with his fingers until her tense body seemed to dissolve into another orgasm.
He pushed into her then, stretching her legs wide and immediately making her gasp at the fullness of him. Eames laughed as he looked down on her splayed body, cheeks flushed and mouth dropped open in a strangled gasp for air. "Oh, yes. This is real."
It was an odd thing for him to say, but then he was driving into her at a rapid pace. Ariadne held onto him and ran her hands over his chest and arms, feeling the muscle flex beneath the skin. She couldn't even think under the intensity of his gaze, and it felt as if he would swallow her whole if he could. The sensation didn't feel as menacing as when he had her pinned to the wall, but more like a sense of possessiveness. Everything seemed to end too soon, and she looked up at Eames' relaxed and blissful expression as he came.
This was him, without question, but there were enough flashes of Bane to make her feel uncomfortable at times.
He pulled her close after he pulled out, tucking her firmly against his chest and holding her in place. That they were both sticky and sweaty didn't seem to matter. "This is where you belong," he murmured into her hair with that odd cadence to his words.
Ariadne shivered despite the heat radiating off of his body. She was going to have to figure out what the hell was going on before it progressed any further.
***
While Eames had "urgent business" somewhere in Mombasa, Ariadne scurried over to Yusuf's dream den as quickly as she could. He took one look at her expression and the joke he was about to make instantly disappeared. "What is it?"
"Eames is different. He's back in Mombasa now, just came back last night." She dropped into a chair beside his and absently glanced at one of his cats sidling up to her leg. Instead of giving it a stroke as she usually did while visiting Yusuf, she turned her golden brown eyes toward her friend, biting her lip. "He sounded like Bane and was almost acting like him," she admitted in a soft tone. For a moment, Ariadne almost felt as if saying the name might bring Eames toward her like a magnet. "It was frightening."
Yusuf folded his hands together and his brows furrowed as he thought. "I'm not a forger," he began slowly, obviously thinking furiously as he spoke to try to comfort her. "Not in any sense of the word, you must understand."
"I do. But you're also his friend. You've known him a long time."
"We're very good colleagues, not privy to each others' secrets. I do believe you've shown far more interest than he has, so you've uncovered a lot more in the few short months we've known each other in Paris than in the years I've known him before."
Ariadne wanted to roll her eyes and huff impatiently, but she had already learned the hard way that Yusuf often simply refused to be hurried. He would tell his stories at his own pace, and wouldn't rush to the finish just to satisfy her curiosity. "Because I'm interested in learning things and getting to the bottom of everything."
"Yes. And while I'm less obvious about it, Ariadne, I am the same way. But since I'm less obvious about it, my knowledge may be imperfect." He waited until she nodded that she understood. "A different forger once told me how difficult it could be sometimes to get the forges exactly right. Small mannerisms, phrasing of speech, that sort of thing. It's more than just an appearance. An entire personality and history must be replicated as well. For her, she felt that becoming the person she was trying to forge was the way to make it real for the subject, to take everything in and think, move, act and respond like the forge. This left her wide open for actually taking on mannerisms after the forge was complete, however. She called it character bleed, when parts of her forge came home with her, so to speak. Enough time as herself in between forges helped to minimize that, because she thought of it as damage to her psyche."
"So that's what's going on now? Character bleed? Eames brought home aspects of Bane's personality?" she asked, feeling as though that was a perfect explanation for why he couldn't recognize her at first.
"It could be. I don't know how common that is or if that's even how Eames does his forgery. I know he follows his targets and tries to observe them in their natural habitats, goes into their homes if he can to see the little details that he can use to craft his illusions once he's under in the dream. It's an art, he said, and I do believe that it is. So much of what we do is delicate and fragile, requiring a deft hand to bring it all together. We're artists, all of us, and so the process is always going to be a little bit different."
"But this makes sense, then," Ariadne murmured, looking at him with something like hope. "If it's just speech or how he holds himself, it should go away. Your friend was able to come back to herself and not be who she was forging herself as."
"Time is crucial, as is the knowledge that it's happening," Yusuf told her gently. "That's if this is even what's happening. I haven't seen Eames yet, and Arthur was point on that particular job. He might know something more."
Ariadne nodded at him. "Thank you, Yusuf. At least I don't have to worry about some kind of disaster happening."
"Oh, that doesn't mean this isn't a disaster," he chided her gently.
"Why? What happened to your friend?"
"She became the thing she was forging completely one day. My friend disappeared and never woke up again." He stood up and gave a sad smile when Ariadne gawked at him in surprise, mouth parting as if she wanted to say something but didn't know what would be appreciated at that time. "These things don't always end well, Ariadne. There are no guarantees when you work as far afield of the mainstream as we do."
"So what do I do?" she asked, standing as well.
Yusuf guided her to his door. "Be patient, and go back to Paris. Get your own life in order, complete your thesis. Figure out if you truly want to work in this field, without his influence or mine. This likely won't be the last complication with him."
"Are you warning me away from him?"
"You're my friend, Ariadne," Yusuf told her firmly. "I'd be a very poor one if I didn't at least make the attempt. He's dangerous on his own, and having Bane bleed through will only make him even more dangerous." He realized that she might not follow his advice, but at least he had given it. Ariadne had to make her own decisions and come to her own conclusions. "Think carefully about that. You were not part of any illegal activity before becoming part of the Fischer job, and I think Cobb gave you an inaccurate picture of what dream share might be."
"Like he never told us about the risk of limbo."
Yusuf winced. "I thought he would heed my warnings and tell you all individually. Looking back, I should have mentioned it at one of the planning meetings, but I was still trying to tailor the compounds to what we needed."
"It's a lot to keep track of," Ariadne said diplomatically as he opened the door.
Laughing softly, there was an almost sad edge to it. "Yes, sometimes. But it should serve as a warning to you: none of us can be trusted completely, even me."
With that in mind, Ariadne called Arthur as soon as she was back in Eames' apartment. He was still out for the day and wouldn't hear her discussing him. Once the usual pleasantries were made, Ariadne immediately asked his opinion of Eames after the job. Arthur was silent for a long moment. "We didn't really talk much. The idea was to do the job and get out as fast as possible to avoid detection. Why?"
"He got back acting like Bane and didn't recognize me," Ariadne told him. She ran a hand through her hair, tugging on it gently in frustration. "Has something like that ever happened before that you know of?"
"To Eames?"
"To anyone," Ariadne corrected, feeling as though her patience was worn thin. Arthur had always been a man made up of different layers of secrets, holding them so very close and keeping people at bay with them. During the six days they had on the first level of the Fischer job, Ariadne and Arthur talked about a lot of different things, including that kiss on the hotel level, but it never seemed to progress further than that. She had thought at first that he had more than professional interest in mind, but he had never really responded when she came onto him during those six days. He remained friendly and cared about her wellbeing when it seemed as though some of Fischer's projections were acting up, but he didn't cross that invisible line between them again.
She had been disappointed at the time, but now it was perhaps for the best. She didn't think Eames would appreciate any romantic interest from Arthur.
The pause on the other end of the line was long and awkward, making Ariadne almost think that Arthur wasn't going to answer. "There are a lot of secrets I can't openly discuss," Arthur said finally, reminding her of Yusuf's slow beginning not that long ago.
"I understand that. You don't need to name names for me, and I won't know who you're talking about since I've only worked on one job."
Arthur sighed at the frustrated tone in her voice. "Yes, but I wouldn't want to drag you further into this. You still have a chance to get out, have a normal life. You don't have to do this, Ariadne. The Fischer job went well, with no physical dangers. The same can't be said for the rest of dream share."
She thought of Eames' return, his hand on her throat and how he had pinned her to the wall of his apartment while she was still half asleep. "I know," she told him, voice grave. "Believe me, I'm well aware of what the risks can be."
That alerted him to the possibility of more she hadn't told him, but the knowledge that Eames had acted like Bane was enough to get Arthur's mind going. "How badly did he hurt you?" he asked, voice sharp in concern.
"He didn't, not like that." Ariadne closed her eyes and sighed. "It was just frightening to think he could change so fast, be someone else and not himself. So how often does that happen?"
"Ariadne, you need to back out of whatever job you're doing with Eames, then. I told him he shouldn't have called you. You shouldn't be involved, it's too dangerous."
"The chivalry's a little too late and a little misplaced," she said, understanding now why Arthur had never pressed his advantage on the first level. It didn't surprise her in the least that he and Eames had discussed her before she had flown to Mombasa. "I'd already told you I couldn't stay away. Too late for that now. I'm still at the edges of dream share."
Arthur heaved a pained sigh. He was silent for a long moment, and she could almost make out a faint tapping, as if his pen was beating a rhythm out along one of his Moleskines. "All right. I know of two other really good forgers. I don't pretend to understand how they do what they do, and I don't want to know. But one of them went insane and was institutionalized in Bonn, needing medications in order to function again. He can't ever forge and dropped out of dream share in order to stay sane. The rumor that went around at the time was that he became his target so fully that he lost his true identity. There was no recovering it, not until he had ECT and massive amounts of medication."
Ariadne was holding the phone with a tight grip, barely able to breathe. "Does that happen often, then? That sort of thing," she clarified, tongue tripping over the words in her horror.
What if Eames never truly recovered from this?
"I don't know. Forging like that is a rare talent. Most aren't that good and can't really fool the subject of the dream for very long." Arthur paused. "I can try to look into what happened, see what I missed in Gotham City. I don't like the idea of you near Eames if something like this happened to him. You have to stay safe."
Ariadne nodded even though he couldn't see her. "I fully intend to be," she assured him. "That's why I'm trying to figure out what I'm dealing with."
"Fair enough." Arthur's voice softened. "Just... Don't do what you did with Cobb, okay? He tolerated that because he always breaks the rules that most people keep. There's a reason why most in the field holds to those rules, though."
"I won't go digging around in his head," Ariadne promised. "It's just that Cobb constantly sounded like there was something dangerous he wasn't telling me, and no one else seemed to see it. I like you guys. I couldn't let something bad happen if I could stop it."
"Well, you coming along with us was probably what saved the entire job, so I'm glad you did. But whatever is going on now is far more dangerous, Ariadne. Do whatever you need to do in order to stay safe."
She froze at his concerned tone. "You think he's that dangerous?"
"I think if he became someone else, you need to be alert." Arthur paused. "It's the League of Shadows I'm concerned about. They are very dangerous, Ariadne. I can't stress that enough, and they are not beholden to any nation. They're law unto themselves. I'll do what I can on my end to look into things and get back to you."
"Thank you, Arthur," Ariadne replied, relieved. "And you stay safe, too. Don't put yourself into danger for me, okay?"
Arthur chuckled. "Forever being protective? I'll be fine. I've had training for all sorts of dangerous scenarios."
But even after getting off the phone, Ariadne couldn't shake the feeling that she had set something into motion that she shouldn't have.
***
***
To Chapter Three - Establishing New Rules