Fic: Perchance to Dream [Part 2]
Title: Perchance to Dream: Part 2
Author: Mira (greenpixidust)
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Pairings: Arthur/Ariadne
Summary: Ariadne wants to learn more about the world of dreams, and she needs Arthur to help her.
Warnings: Smut will be coming, possibility of light bondage, and definitely some angst.
[Part the First]
Arthur's long legs ate through the scenery in precise, measured steps, soft clicks sounding with the landing of each heel upon the stone road, beating out a rhythm that matched his quickened pulse. He needed to clear his head, and the crisp air in city should help to do that.
Working in his chosen career path had led him to learn quite a bit about the nature of people, what a person was at their core. He'd seen the buried secrets and desires of countless people and he hadn't thought that anything could surprise him any more. He thought that he knew himself better than anyone could. It was his job to be prepared for everything that could possibly occur, but he hadn't been ready for the thread Ariadne had wound through him, tightening with every utterance of her surprisingly competent mind.
It wasn't the first time a dream like this had made it's way into his head. During the rare times he still dreamed, images of Ariadne had popped up with some frequency and he couldn't say that it bothered him over much. He was aware of what his subconscious mind was up to, but unlike some people, he could keep his under tighter control. Or at least so he thought.
But Mal, Mal was another thing. Her appearance was something new, his own image of Cobb's guilt-twisted projection of his wife had never put in an appearance in his mind until now. His fists clenched inside of his trouser pockets as he walked the Paris streets.
There was only one conclusion he could draw, something his mind was trying to tell him; that he was becoming too enthralled with the small architect and her pouty lips and those wide eyes that still looked at the world with wonder. He was losing his mind in the Sea of Ariadne- and if he didn't make a conscious effort to stop it, he could find himself lost like Cobb had been.
Though he was too tight-lipped to say it, he could see how close Cobb had been to making the wrong choice. Guilt and love were an intricate tangle of emotions, and as a combined force, they could have easily pulled Cobb back into limbo without any hopes of retrieving him. All Arthur could do was to thank whatever higher power might exist for James and Phillipa. They were the only anchors that had tied Dom to reality. They were the only things that could have.
He should have realized it was a mistake to come back to Paris in the first place. When he called the booking agent and she asked for a destination, he hadn't been able to stop himself before Paris, France tumbled from his mouth. He'd been to France many times even before the inception and had always enjoyed the culture of the city, so he hadn't questioned himself at that point. Now he was beginning to realize that his own subconscious was working against him.
He shook himself from his inner thoughts and paused, attempting to figure out where he was. He looked around at all the tall buildings surrounding him, and with a shake of his head- realized that he was on the street where the warehouse was located. He was not happy with the effect that his subconscious was having on his waking life lately.
However, he still found himself unlocking the door to the warehouse with the key he had kept. The location was a good one, and it was possible that if future jobs came up, it might serve once more as a base of operations. Slowly, Arthur walked around the warehouse, realizing quietly to himself that if people knew what had taken place there, it could have become an historical landmark. After all, this is where the first ever successful inception had been conceived. Though if the job was completely successful, then no one would ever know that had ever happened.
He paused in his steps, standing at the doorway to what had become Ariadne's workroom. They were careful to get rid of all of her models and sketches before the job was even executed, but piles of unused sketch papers and pencils showing the wear of heavy use were still scattered about the room. He walked forward, spotting her drafting board, and placed a hand gently upon it, pulling it away reluctantly, almost like someone would caress the cheek of a lover before a long goodbye.
He could picture her there, her dark curls forming a curtain as she bent over her work station, trying to get another detail just right, her lavender-scented shampoo weaving a cloud of gentleness that contrasted with furious movement of her hands over the lines in front of her. A smile ghosted across his lips as he recalled how much she had thrown herself into the work, how dedicated she had become to this project.
She was a whirling tornado of ideas, her hands barely able to keep up with the quickness of her thoughts as she worked. On occasion he had found himself just watching her as he leaned against the door frame, marveling at her, and she too absorbed in her designs to notice him. Her dedication and razor-sharp, impossibly imaginative mind had drawn him in more than any tart with a low-cut top and coquette's smile ever could.
He usually wasn't given over to such sentimentality, but if he was going to erase the imprint of that girl and the deft hands that created new worlds from his mind, he felt the need to at least give something of a farewell, and silent goodbyes in a place that was hers was as much as he could afford. He hadn't actually seen Ariadne since Los Angeles, when she had told him that she was going to visit her parents while in the US.
Everyone had said their farewells, and she'd hugged everyone in the group, with mixed reactions. Dom had closed his arms around her tightly, then smiled at her before placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. Arthur wasn't sure, but there seemed to be a bond there that hadn't been in place before the job. Something had happened in those lower levels, something that had created a connection. It was not necessarily stronger than the one himself and Cobb shared, but it was different, and Arthur couldn't help the small prick of jealousy that had stung him in that moment, despite how placid he kept his expression.
Eames had smiled and returned her hug, grabbing her arm gently as they separated to place a kiss on the back of her hand.
“If you ever find yourself in the darker corners of the world, darling, do look me up,” he had said, still holding onto her hand.
Arthur had not been able to help the smirk that touched his lips when she rolled her eyes and gave the British man's shoulder a gentle shove. She'd even hugged Saito, although the businessman seemed confused with what to do, returning the hug stiffly before quickly separating himself from her.
But then she had turned to him, and for a moment, he could swear that there was a flicker of heat smoldering in those brown eyes. But then she had approached and embraced him the same way she had the others from the group, a simple hug, nothing more. He'd returned it, a fond smile touching his lips, though she had lingered for a moment, her hands upon his arms.
“Goodbye, Arthur.”
He tried not to read any subtext into those two simple words. If there was anything there to be read, it was fleeting, a leftover sense of intimacy from the long hours spent together preparing for and then executing the job they had just completed. He couldn't allow himself to suddenly get, to use Eames' words, “imaginative”. It wasn't productive and it wasn't healthy, as he'd seen all to well.
Now months after her departure from his life, he once again considered that momentary flash of feeling he thought he had seen. He was just self-centered enough to assume that there had been at least some baseline sexual attraction to him, a girl's crush on someone she spent a lot of time around. But he chided himself for thinking that it was anything more than a momentary infatuation.
He shoved his other hand once more into his pocket, turning away from the drafting board. As he started towards the door of the room, he heard a shuffling sound coming from somewhere within the warehouse. With a silent curse he plastered himself against the wall, his gun drawn so quickly it almost seemed to teleport into his hand. Had they been found out? Was Cobol still looking for them, despite the protection Saito had offered? His mind raced with possibilities as he slowly inched towards the door, scanning what he could see of the warehouse from this angle.
He could hear someone just on the other side of the wall, moving towards the room he was in. He tensed, a coil of potential energy waiting to be sprung. The intruder wasn't particularly stealthy, he noted. Perhaps it was just your run-of-the-mill thief, hoping to find something valuable in the abandoned warehouse. As the person approached the entry way of the door, Arthur spun around them, getting behind and placing his arm around their throat and the gun at their temple. His brows knitted together with confusion as the soft scent of lavender wafted up from the intruder.
“A-Arthur?” he heard Ariadne squeak out in surprise and he could feel her shudder in his arms. He quickly let go of her, sliding his gun into the holster at his back as he fixed her with a look.
“What are you doing here, Ariadne?” he asked, his tone slightly accusatory. He carefully maintained a mask of cool confidence as his hand slipped back into his pocket, his thumb running across the pips of his loaded die.
“I could ask you the same thing, Arthur,” she said defensively as she rubbed the back of her neck, the faintest of tremors in her voice though she no longer seemed to be visibly shaken. She eyed him warily, the reflexive movement of her fingers over her neck to center herself stirring that luscious shampoo scent towards him.
“I was checking up on the warehouse, making sure it was still secure,” he lied, his voice and body reflecting an ease that he didn't particularly feel at this moment. He took a slow, deep breath, trying to inhale and imprint that smell upon his memory even more than it already was.
“Well, I... don't know exactly what I was doing,” she sighed as her hands moved to her hips and she glanced around the area she possessively considered hers, despite the naked walls and discarded pencils.
“I guess I was just-”
“Reminiscing?” he finished for her, a small smile sneaking it's way across his face.
“Yeah, I guess. Yeah, you're right,” she said as she let out a small sigh. She wandered about the room as she talked, her own hand mirroring his motions over the drafting board. He forced himself to keep still, only turning towards her when she spoke again.
“I've been thinking a lot about the thing with Fischer and everything that happened and everything that I did, and...” she trailed off, looking up at Arthur as a swirl of different emotions flitted across her eyes, but she tamped it down with near visible force before he could sort out what her expression meant.
“I want more, Arthur.”
Arthur's hand tightened around his totem, the edges of the die pressing painfully against his palm. Once more he told himself that the subtext in her words was only from his own interpretation, not something she had intended.
“The dreams, you mean?”
“Yes, the dreams. Building the levels for the job was... incredible,” her voice softened with a sense of awe, “but for our purposes, everything was kept mostly realistic, put into terms Fischer would understand. When Cobb hired me, he told me I'd have the chance to build things that weren't even possible in the real world, things that defy explanation. And yeah, I got to do some of that, definitely, but I want to try more.” She emphasized the last word, her eyes locking with his in a pleading look.
“So why don't you then? I'm sure you have some conscious control of your own dreams by now. You could experiment in there.”
She shook her head a bit, another sigh beginning to form.
“It's not the same, not by a long shot. I can't be an objective observer to my own work, and how can I test the effectiveness of the maze when it's my own subconscious? All the projections will already know everything. Plus, if I'm going to be completely honest, you don't build Notre Dame Cathedral and then place it on a deserted island.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
“What I mean is, what's the point of building these wonderful, amazing things if no one can see them? Especially when I know someone could. Besides, you've been at this for way longer than I have. You have more experience and could probably give me ideas that I never even thought of, sort of like the Penrose steps.”
While she was talking her tone moved fluidly through dejected and earnest, ending with a hopeful upbeat to her words.
“No,” Arthur said flatly, shaking his head. “The job is done, and you don't need to get sucked into this life, Ariadne.”
“Well it's too fucking late, Arthur,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest, and the expletive landed like a grenade at his feet.
“You and Dominic brought me into this world, exposed me to bringing the impossible to life. You knew what was going to happen and you can't just leave me dangling here on the edge of knowing.” Her voice became almost petulant. “It's not fair.”
He shook his head again at her, mirroring her crossed arms, though Cobb's words reverberated in his head. Reality's not going to be enough for her. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't be the one to subject her to this underground life he and the others lived. She had so much potential, so much life in front of her and he wasn't going to allow his selfish desire to spend time with her to be the reason she spent life as an outlaw.
“You're going to have to find someone else, Ariadne. I won't be the one to make you live this way.”
“You know someone else with a PASIV machine?” She glared at him defiantly as her hands, now balled into fists, once again returned to her hips. “Besides, I think that it's really my decision how I want to live, isn't it? After all, it's my life, right Arthur?”
Arthur sighed, his lips thinning into a slash across his face, but he said nothing. They stared at each other for a moment, each quietly daring the other to back down. But despite Ariadne's pluck, Arthur was an old hand at this game, and eventually she let out a huff of air and turned.
“Fine,” she ground out, her face filled with pain and anger and rejection before she whirled away from him, her feet slamming across the floor of the warehouse as she made her way to the door.
“It was worth a shot,” she said quietly over her shoulder as she paused momentarily by the door before emerging onto the street.
His knees nearly buckled with the force of hearing his own words thrown back at him by this girl, this tiny slip of a thing that should have never had the power to break him with one small sentence. The risks she was asking him to take, to allow her to take, were huge, but he couldn't stand to know that she was hurting because of him. She couldn't possibly guess at what his subconscious had been playing at lately, but he would just have to keep a tighter lid on the wanderings of his own mind. And, he had to admit to himself, he was intensely curious what she would be able to do given the chance.
Arthur hesitated a moment before chasing her out the door, grabbing her arm as he caught up with her.
“If we do this, you're going to have to follow my rules, you understand? If we do the kind of experimentation you're talking about, it's too easy to get lost within yourself, within the dream.” He fixed her with an intense gaze, his jaw set, willing her to reconsider but at the same time desperately hoping that she didn't.
She nodded, breathless, though the smile that lit her face like an angel's halo betrayed her eagerness and he cursed himself for how much he needed to see her smile. It was terrible of him to do this, to risk her, just so he could spend more time in her infuriatingly intoxicating presence, so that it was not him that caused a frown to mar that porcelain doll face.
“Okay. Okay.” She nodded again as he released her arm.
“Meet me here, tomorrow, at 9:00am.”
Her smile grew as she barely resisted the urge to bounce on her toes.
“All right, Arthur. Tomorrow it is.”
[Part the Third]
x-posted to arthur_ariadne and inceptionfic
Author: Mira (greenpixidust)
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Pairings: Arthur/Ariadne
Summary: Ariadne wants to learn more about the world of dreams, and she needs Arthur to help her.
Warnings: Smut will be coming, possibility of light bondage, and definitely some angst.
[Part the First]
Arthur's long legs ate through the scenery in precise, measured steps, soft clicks sounding with the landing of each heel upon the stone road, beating out a rhythm that matched his quickened pulse. He needed to clear his head, and the crisp air in city should help to do that.
Working in his chosen career path had led him to learn quite a bit about the nature of people, what a person was at their core. He'd seen the buried secrets and desires of countless people and he hadn't thought that anything could surprise him any more. He thought that he knew himself better than anyone could. It was his job to be prepared for everything that could possibly occur, but he hadn't been ready for the thread Ariadne had wound through him, tightening with every utterance of her surprisingly competent mind.
It wasn't the first time a dream like this had made it's way into his head. During the rare times he still dreamed, images of Ariadne had popped up with some frequency and he couldn't say that it bothered him over much. He was aware of what his subconscious mind was up to, but unlike some people, he could keep his under tighter control. Or at least so he thought.
But Mal, Mal was another thing. Her appearance was something new, his own image of Cobb's guilt-twisted projection of his wife had never put in an appearance in his mind until now. His fists clenched inside of his trouser pockets as he walked the Paris streets.
There was only one conclusion he could draw, something his mind was trying to tell him; that he was becoming too enthralled with the small architect and her pouty lips and those wide eyes that still looked at the world with wonder. He was losing his mind in the Sea of Ariadne- and if he didn't make a conscious effort to stop it, he could find himself lost like Cobb had been.
Though he was too tight-lipped to say it, he could see how close Cobb had been to making the wrong choice. Guilt and love were an intricate tangle of emotions, and as a combined force, they could have easily pulled Cobb back into limbo without any hopes of retrieving him. All Arthur could do was to thank whatever higher power might exist for James and Phillipa. They were the only anchors that had tied Dom to reality. They were the only things that could have.
He should have realized it was a mistake to come back to Paris in the first place. When he called the booking agent and she asked for a destination, he hadn't been able to stop himself before Paris, France tumbled from his mouth. He'd been to France many times even before the inception and had always enjoyed the culture of the city, so he hadn't questioned himself at that point. Now he was beginning to realize that his own subconscious was working against him.
He shook himself from his inner thoughts and paused, attempting to figure out where he was. He looked around at all the tall buildings surrounding him, and with a shake of his head- realized that he was on the street where the warehouse was located. He was not happy with the effect that his subconscious was having on his waking life lately.
However, he still found himself unlocking the door to the warehouse with the key he had kept. The location was a good one, and it was possible that if future jobs came up, it might serve once more as a base of operations. Slowly, Arthur walked around the warehouse, realizing quietly to himself that if people knew what had taken place there, it could have become an historical landmark. After all, this is where the first ever successful inception had been conceived. Though if the job was completely successful, then no one would ever know that had ever happened.
He paused in his steps, standing at the doorway to what had become Ariadne's workroom. They were careful to get rid of all of her models and sketches before the job was even executed, but piles of unused sketch papers and pencils showing the wear of heavy use were still scattered about the room. He walked forward, spotting her drafting board, and placed a hand gently upon it, pulling it away reluctantly, almost like someone would caress the cheek of a lover before a long goodbye.
He could picture her there, her dark curls forming a curtain as she bent over her work station, trying to get another detail just right, her lavender-scented shampoo weaving a cloud of gentleness that contrasted with furious movement of her hands over the lines in front of her. A smile ghosted across his lips as he recalled how much she had thrown herself into the work, how dedicated she had become to this project.
She was a whirling tornado of ideas, her hands barely able to keep up with the quickness of her thoughts as she worked. On occasion he had found himself just watching her as he leaned against the door frame, marveling at her, and she too absorbed in her designs to notice him. Her dedication and razor-sharp, impossibly imaginative mind had drawn him in more than any tart with a low-cut top and coquette's smile ever could.
He usually wasn't given over to such sentimentality, but if he was going to erase the imprint of that girl and the deft hands that created new worlds from his mind, he felt the need to at least give something of a farewell, and silent goodbyes in a place that was hers was as much as he could afford. He hadn't actually seen Ariadne since Los Angeles, when she had told him that she was going to visit her parents while in the US.
Everyone had said their farewells, and she'd hugged everyone in the group, with mixed reactions. Dom had closed his arms around her tightly, then smiled at her before placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. Arthur wasn't sure, but there seemed to be a bond there that hadn't been in place before the job. Something had happened in those lower levels, something that had created a connection. It was not necessarily stronger than the one himself and Cobb shared, but it was different, and Arthur couldn't help the small prick of jealousy that had stung him in that moment, despite how placid he kept his expression.
Eames had smiled and returned her hug, grabbing her arm gently as they separated to place a kiss on the back of her hand.
“If you ever find yourself in the darker corners of the world, darling, do look me up,” he had said, still holding onto her hand.
Arthur had not been able to help the smirk that touched his lips when she rolled her eyes and gave the British man's shoulder a gentle shove. She'd even hugged Saito, although the businessman seemed confused with what to do, returning the hug stiffly before quickly separating himself from her.
But then she had turned to him, and for a moment, he could swear that there was a flicker of heat smoldering in those brown eyes. But then she had approached and embraced him the same way she had the others from the group, a simple hug, nothing more. He'd returned it, a fond smile touching his lips, though she had lingered for a moment, her hands upon his arms.
“Goodbye, Arthur.”
He tried not to read any subtext into those two simple words. If there was anything there to be read, it was fleeting, a leftover sense of intimacy from the long hours spent together preparing for and then executing the job they had just completed. He couldn't allow himself to suddenly get, to use Eames' words, “imaginative”. It wasn't productive and it wasn't healthy, as he'd seen all to well.
Now months after her departure from his life, he once again considered that momentary flash of feeling he thought he had seen. He was just self-centered enough to assume that there had been at least some baseline sexual attraction to him, a girl's crush on someone she spent a lot of time around. But he chided himself for thinking that it was anything more than a momentary infatuation.
He shoved his other hand once more into his pocket, turning away from the drafting board. As he started towards the door of the room, he heard a shuffling sound coming from somewhere within the warehouse. With a silent curse he plastered himself against the wall, his gun drawn so quickly it almost seemed to teleport into his hand. Had they been found out? Was Cobol still looking for them, despite the protection Saito had offered? His mind raced with possibilities as he slowly inched towards the door, scanning what he could see of the warehouse from this angle.
He could hear someone just on the other side of the wall, moving towards the room he was in. He tensed, a coil of potential energy waiting to be sprung. The intruder wasn't particularly stealthy, he noted. Perhaps it was just your run-of-the-mill thief, hoping to find something valuable in the abandoned warehouse. As the person approached the entry way of the door, Arthur spun around them, getting behind and placing his arm around their throat and the gun at their temple. His brows knitted together with confusion as the soft scent of lavender wafted up from the intruder.
“A-Arthur?” he heard Ariadne squeak out in surprise and he could feel her shudder in his arms. He quickly let go of her, sliding his gun into the holster at his back as he fixed her with a look.
“What are you doing here, Ariadne?” he asked, his tone slightly accusatory. He carefully maintained a mask of cool confidence as his hand slipped back into his pocket, his thumb running across the pips of his loaded die.
“I could ask you the same thing, Arthur,” she said defensively as she rubbed the back of her neck, the faintest of tremors in her voice though she no longer seemed to be visibly shaken. She eyed him warily, the reflexive movement of her fingers over her neck to center herself stirring that luscious shampoo scent towards him.
“I was checking up on the warehouse, making sure it was still secure,” he lied, his voice and body reflecting an ease that he didn't particularly feel at this moment. He took a slow, deep breath, trying to inhale and imprint that smell upon his memory even more than it already was.
“Well, I... don't know exactly what I was doing,” she sighed as her hands moved to her hips and she glanced around the area she possessively considered hers, despite the naked walls and discarded pencils.
“I guess I was just-”
“Reminiscing?” he finished for her, a small smile sneaking it's way across his face.
“Yeah, I guess. Yeah, you're right,” she said as she let out a small sigh. She wandered about the room as she talked, her own hand mirroring his motions over the drafting board. He forced himself to keep still, only turning towards her when she spoke again.
“I've been thinking a lot about the thing with Fischer and everything that happened and everything that I did, and...” she trailed off, looking up at Arthur as a swirl of different emotions flitted across her eyes, but she tamped it down with near visible force before he could sort out what her expression meant.
“I want more, Arthur.”
Arthur's hand tightened around his totem, the edges of the die pressing painfully against his palm. Once more he told himself that the subtext in her words was only from his own interpretation, not something she had intended.
“The dreams, you mean?”
“Yes, the dreams. Building the levels for the job was... incredible,” her voice softened with a sense of awe, “but for our purposes, everything was kept mostly realistic, put into terms Fischer would understand. When Cobb hired me, he told me I'd have the chance to build things that weren't even possible in the real world, things that defy explanation. And yeah, I got to do some of that, definitely, but I want to try more.” She emphasized the last word, her eyes locking with his in a pleading look.
“So why don't you then? I'm sure you have some conscious control of your own dreams by now. You could experiment in there.”
She shook her head a bit, another sigh beginning to form.
“It's not the same, not by a long shot. I can't be an objective observer to my own work, and how can I test the effectiveness of the maze when it's my own subconscious? All the projections will already know everything. Plus, if I'm going to be completely honest, you don't build Notre Dame Cathedral and then place it on a deserted island.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
“What I mean is, what's the point of building these wonderful, amazing things if no one can see them? Especially when I know someone could. Besides, you've been at this for way longer than I have. You have more experience and could probably give me ideas that I never even thought of, sort of like the Penrose steps.”
While she was talking her tone moved fluidly through dejected and earnest, ending with a hopeful upbeat to her words.
“No,” Arthur said flatly, shaking his head. “The job is done, and you don't need to get sucked into this life, Ariadne.”
“Well it's too fucking late, Arthur,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest, and the expletive landed like a grenade at his feet.
“You and Dominic brought me into this world, exposed me to bringing the impossible to life. You knew what was going to happen and you can't just leave me dangling here on the edge of knowing.” Her voice became almost petulant. “It's not fair.”
He shook his head again at her, mirroring her crossed arms, though Cobb's words reverberated in his head. Reality's not going to be enough for her. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't be the one to subject her to this underground life he and the others lived. She had so much potential, so much life in front of her and he wasn't going to allow his selfish desire to spend time with her to be the reason she spent life as an outlaw.
“You're going to have to find someone else, Ariadne. I won't be the one to make you live this way.”
“You know someone else with a PASIV machine?” She glared at him defiantly as her hands, now balled into fists, once again returned to her hips. “Besides, I think that it's really my decision how I want to live, isn't it? After all, it's my life, right Arthur?”
Arthur sighed, his lips thinning into a slash across his face, but he said nothing. They stared at each other for a moment, each quietly daring the other to back down. But despite Ariadne's pluck, Arthur was an old hand at this game, and eventually she let out a huff of air and turned.
“Fine,” she ground out, her face filled with pain and anger and rejection before she whirled away from him, her feet slamming across the floor of the warehouse as she made her way to the door.
“It was worth a shot,” she said quietly over her shoulder as she paused momentarily by the door before emerging onto the street.
His knees nearly buckled with the force of hearing his own words thrown back at him by this girl, this tiny slip of a thing that should have never had the power to break him with one small sentence. The risks she was asking him to take, to allow her to take, were huge, but he couldn't stand to know that she was hurting because of him. She couldn't possibly guess at what his subconscious had been playing at lately, but he would just have to keep a tighter lid on the wanderings of his own mind. And, he had to admit to himself, he was intensely curious what she would be able to do given the chance.
Arthur hesitated a moment before chasing her out the door, grabbing her arm as he caught up with her.
“If we do this, you're going to have to follow my rules, you understand? If we do the kind of experimentation you're talking about, it's too easy to get lost within yourself, within the dream.” He fixed her with an intense gaze, his jaw set, willing her to reconsider but at the same time desperately hoping that she didn't.
She nodded, breathless, though the smile that lit her face like an angel's halo betrayed her eagerness and he cursed himself for how much he needed to see her smile. It was terrible of him to do this, to risk her, just so he could spend more time in her infuriatingly intoxicating presence, so that it was not him that caused a frown to mar that porcelain doll face.
“Okay. Okay.” She nodded again as he released her arm.
“Meet me here, tomorrow, at 9:00am.”
Her smile grew as she barely resisted the urge to bounce on her toes.
“All right, Arthur. Tomorrow it is.”
[Part the Third]
x-posted to arthur_ariadne and inceptionfic