twentysomething

Title: All My Only Dreams

Fandom: Inception

Pairing: Arthur/Ariadne

Summary: "They rush off, things to fix, ideas to plant, but her lips are tingling and she wonders if her real lips are buzzing, too."

Length: 1300 wordsish.

Warnings: None, really. Kissing between boys and girls. COOTIES.

Notes: Written for the Inception Kink Meme, here for the prompt: "Five times Arthur kissed her in a dream world and one time he kissed her in reality. Take the kissing further if you want."



1.

Ariadne thinks there's no way to lose your grip on reality- dreams are so much sharper than reality.

Or maybe that's just Arthur's creation, all sharp, clean, corporate lines that are like a signature to her.

But she can see what everyone means in the instant Arthur says, "Quick, give me a kiss." Because even though she knows it can't have lasted any longer than a second, maybe two, time stretches around it, dilated and hazy and too, too real.

They rush off, things to fix, ideas to plant, but her lips are tingling and she wonders if her real lips are buzzing, too.

It's only when we wake up then, we realize that something was actually strange.

Dom is crazy, but he's not wrong.

2.

She expects them to peel off like the ending of a movie- subtle and suave half-acknowledgments in the baggage check- but Arthur catches her elbow, carefully cradling it in the palm of his hand and leading her to the curb where he hails a taxi. Eames appears somewhere behind her shoulder and just out of the corner of her eye, Yusuf is waiting, too.

A nondescript van pulls up and Ariadne almost feels foolish for thinking that Arthur hadn't made provisions for this eventuality, too. She looks around for Dom, even though she sees Saito slipping into a sleek, towncar maybe 50 feet away. Arthur just squeezes her elbow and opens the door for her- and sometimes she wonders if she imagined him up, because he actually offers his hand, like he's passing her up and into a carriage.

Still, she'd felt something, two layers deep and she likes Arthur, so she allows herself to take his hand and settle into the second (first) van of the day.

At least Yusuf isn't driving.

She must fall asleep, because beyond the fact that she has no idea how she got here, she's not the heroine of an Austen novel and Arthur isn't Mr. Darcy.

But he still presses a kiss to the back of her gloved hand as he helps her down and Ariadne knows it's not real, but she still wishes her hand were bare.

She wakes up as they pull around to the front of the ludicrously expensive hotel and tips the bishop over in her palm, anyway.

3.

Ariadne still dreams on her own- the ongoing Regency Harlequin in her head is living proof of that- but the weeks after the Fischer job are filled with nightmarish, lurid scenarios where none of them ever wake or they all wake up, but the plane never lands or the plane lands and the airport is populated with the hostile, accusing projections of Dom's subconscious.

She wakes up gasping and sweaty and clammy, wondering if this is why they don't dream anymore.

Once she wakes up and Arthur is sitting there, uncharacteristically rumpled- tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, hair tumbling toward his forehead.

"You're not well," he tells her, resting his lips against her forehead, like a parent feeling for a fever. "It's okay. It takes practice."

She wakes up again and tips the bishop over again and again before calling room service for coffee. She's not going back to sleep tonight.

4.

This time she knows she's dreaming, because she's hooked up to the machine, but that doesn't stop the sun from coming out around the corner as Arthur walks into the cafe that's not quite the one around the corner from her apartment in Paris.

Except this isn't Arthur, she knows that- it's just a reflection of how she thinks of him- just a shadow of- Dom called it a Shade, didn't he? A Shade. It sounds like some kind of cobbled-together monster that lurks under the bed, but it's just a fair copy of a man Ariadne wants to know. If she wants to do that, she needs to do better than something with his face and half of his spark.

But it feels syrupy-slow like real life when he passes her a poppy.

"Poppies stand for imagination," Arthur tells her.

"They also mean eternal oblivion," Ariadne counters- and she didn't know she knew that, but her subconscious does her the courtesy of not arguing with her further, he just lifts her coffee to his lips and watches her with dark eyes in the sunlight.

"When two people share a glass, it's called an indirect kiss." Arthur offers as she steals back her mug.

"I've already kissed you." Ariadne shoots back peevishly. Arthur smiles.

"Have you?" he asks, and no, no she really hasn't.

5.

They're on a training wheels job, lifting a safe combination- for real, this time- and Ariadne can't help but let her fingers twitch nervously, watching Arthur at work.

"Can't imagine what you're so concerned about, Ducks." Eames murmurs in her ear. Ariadne is so tightly-wound that she can't even jump with surprise.

"I'm still new at this," Ariadne points out sensibly, if unbelievably. Eames snorts, crossing his not-unimpressive arms.

"Please," Eames says disdainfully. Ariadne wonders if this is what Dom felt like all the time, waiting for Mal to show up, but Ariadne is waiting for Arthur, which is ridiculous, because Arthur, honest-to-God Arthur- well, honest-to-God dream Arthur- is less than ten feet from her.

But there are baseball cards in the safe- Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra and Jackie Robinson, carefully stacked on top of each other- 7534842. Which means they can go, they can go and she'll know, she'll know she can keep Arth- the Shade out.

Ariadne checks her watch and they've got another minute in the dream, and she can feel it fading out, but first she sees Arthur through the window of the office, blowing her a kiss.

Ariadne's eyes flutter open and she's so, so, so fucked.

1.

"Can I see it?" Arthur asks her, eyes poring over the blueprints. "I just don't think I'm visualizing it accurately." Ariadne stares at him.

"You want to go into the dream," she says slowly because she hasn't really figured out what to do with her imaginary Arthur problem, but she was hoping something would present itself before their next job. And to say the least, it hadn't presented itself, yet. Arthur's crooked smile is better because it's real, but she'll be dreaming about it tonight.

"That is what we do," Arthur suggests dryly. Ariadne can feel her cheeks flushing pink. Of course it is. She doesn't have a single good reason not to- or at least that Arthur knows about. But this is what Dom did- encouraged his obsession, took it with him everywhere and into their minds, too, and it had nearly killed them all. And if she can't build- if she can't make anything anymore-

So, while soul-crushingly embarrassing, honesty seems to be the only policy.

"I have a- a problem," she blurts out. "With you." Which is terrible, that sounds like she hates him or something and judging from the way Arthur's eyebrows nearly fly off his face, it doesn't sound that great on his end either.

"I mean, it's just- you're there," Ariadne pushes on- crazily, stupidly, insanely pushes on. "And I mean, I know it's not you, but it's- he's a lot like you, maybe and it's- you're distracting."

Arthur's eyes go wide in sudden understanding, and that's twice in one conversation she's managed to surprise him. It might be a record.

She doesn't know what's writ large over her face other than undying shame, but whatever it is, Arthur seems to see something and he leans forward and-

Arthur kisses her.

Her lips tingle.

It's much better in real life. It's so much better.

He huffs a little laugh- mostly just hot, damp air- against her slack, open mouth.

"If you'd like, I can actually distract you while you're awake," Arthur offers and she reaches for the bishop in her pocket, putting it on the table, listening to it topple over.

"I'm real," Arthur promises.

"Good," Ariadne says and kisses Arthur again.