calling for my soul at the corners of the world

by metonymy

Chapter 3

18 // "is there a Signal there on the other side"

 

It's a lovely day when her phone rings. She remembers that later: the clear delicate blue of the early summer sky, fluffy white clouds gamboling along like happy sheep, the heat of the day warm but not overpowering. The forecast was so nice that she put on a skirt for once and enjoyed the feeling of it flipping around her knees all morning. It's lunchtime and she's thinking about nothing in particular. Later this worries her; shouldn't she remember? Probably about where to get her sandwich and what she'll have on it and what might be fresh. Certainly not about Arthur or Eames, except possibly in the vague sense that it might be nice to have a companion or two for lunch.

So she's completely unprepared when she answers her phone and instead of someone from the lab or her mother or one of her friends it's Eames, sounding like pronouncing the four syllables of her name is costing him his last breaths. They very well might be.

"Eames?" she says carefully. "What is it? What's wrong?" Usually when he calls it's all plummy greetings and overly precious endearments.

He stammers, and that sends her right past concern and straight into fear, because she has never heard this from him. Even during the Fischer job he was angry, masking whatever else he might have felt with cut-glass enunciation and words hurled like weapons. "Slow down and take a deep breath," she tells him, and tries to take her own advice. She hates standing in the middle of the sidewalk and talking on the phone.

"It's Arthur," he says, and everything stops. Something opens up inside her and leaves her feeling hollow and for a moment, absurdly, she stops and turns to make sure she hasn't left any vital organs on the sidewalk behind her. But no, everything's still inside, and she realizes Eames is still talking.

"I couldn't - I can't get him out, Ariadne. Bad batch of drugs, I already called Yusuf, but -" He stops and she hears staticky noises that must mean he was affected by the adulterated somnacin as well. "I need you, Ariadne. He needs you. You've done it before. You have to bring him back." He sounds panicky, confused, lost, like - well, rather like she feels at the moment.

She reaches into her pocket for her totem. Nowadays her dreams are nothing like reality but she still needs to check. But it's there, light as ever, the three jagged scratches on the rim of the opening where she hollowed it out and the drill skipped, the notch at the top that fits her thumbnail perfectly. So this is real.

"Where are you?"

"Greece." She holds back the hysterical laughter she can feel bubbling up. At least she'll be able to read the signs there.

"I love you," she says to reassure him. It's the first time she's said it straight out to him, but she's trying so hard to not panic that it barely signifies. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

That turns out to be the next day. She spends an exorbitant amount of money to be on a flight leaving New York that evening. She uses the passport Arthur got her for the Fischer job and refuses to cry when she pulls it out of her bag. She doesn't sleep on the plane; every time she closes her eyes she sees the city, the hotel, the mountain and the fortress. Every minor patch of turbulence is a kick that keeps her up and she draws with shaky lines on the tiny tray table and urges the plane forward ever faster. Her seatmate snores and while it's annoying it's also comforting in a strange way, something real and unpredictable and reminding her that the world isn't actually ending. It just feels like it might be.

There's a stop in Zurich and she leaves the plane and dredges up her French and then remembers that they speak German here, until finally the man at the counter takes pity on her and asks what she would like in English. The coffee keeps her awake halfway to Athens, but she must sleep at some point because they're landing. There's a wild moment of terror before she finds her totem in her pocket and the scars on its base, and that gets her through till they've stopped and she can knock it over and start to calm down.

She texts Eames while she's waiting in line for customs, the people shuffling forward at a rate that makes her want to scream. The answer comes quickly: outside in blu van se eu soon. And indeed, there is a hideous powder blue van waiting that looks to be mostly held together with rust. Yusuf is waiting outside, his goatee now a proper beard and his smile flashing in the middle of it when he sees her.

"Ariadne," he says, voice warm. "A pleasure to see you again, even under these circumstances." He kisses her cheek and takes her bag without waiting for an answer - are all dream criminals afflicted with gallantry, or just the ones she met? "Perhaps you can convince Eames to let me drive, as he has not slept in the past two days." The side door rolls open and Eames glares out at her with bloodshot eyes, and he looks like hell. Yusuf rolls the small suitcase at him and he barely manages to catch it.

"I'm fine," he snaps.

"You have trouble with the sides of the road when you're well rested," Ariadne sighs, clambering into the van. "And you look like creepers in this van. I hope nobody calls the police and thinks you're kidnapping me."

"An unfortunate necessity," Yusuf says, closing the door and going around the front to get in the driver's seat. The back row of seats has been ripped out and there are crates filling the space that chime gently against each other when he starts the engine with a coughing rumble.

He has to concentrate too much on the city traffic and the winding roads to talk, so Ariadne turns to Eames, who hasn't bothered moving up to shotgun but is slumped against the windowless wall of the van. "Now that I'm here, are you going to explain what the hell happened?" she asks, and it comes out more fiercely than she intended. But damn it, she dropped her life and ran when he called, he can tell her what the fuck is going on.

Eames rubs a hand over his face, covering his bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes and then his dry, chapped lips. "We were running a job. It was supposed to be simple, in and out, didn't need a chemist. So I went to a supplier the architect recommended." She doesn't ask who was doing the build. It's not important. "They seemed fine, the drugs seemed fine, but we went under to learn the level and everything was... wrong."

"Wrong how?" Ariadne says. She's gripping the seat under her with both hands, to keep her balance and to keep her nails from cutting into her palms.

"Mattias couldn't maintain the level. It was like a bloody Surrealist painting, walls melting all over and the street sticking to our feet. We were meant to be suppressing projections but they started popping up anyway." He stops. That can't possibly be the end of it. She puts a hand on his arm and waits.

"They looked... off. Too many limbs, or none at all, or kind of stuck together. And vicious. Then the level started collapsing as they set on us. Mattias went out first. I was trying to wake Arthur up when they got to me." It sounds like he's holding back tears, like he isn't aware he's speaking to her anymore. Her hand slides down to hold his and he clutches at it; she can feel her knuckles grinding together, but she doesn't complain.

"And then?"

Eames covers his eyes again, pinches the bridge of his nose then rubs under it briefly. "I was too busy being quite thoroughly sick to see where Mattias went. By the time I was able to do anything, he was gone, the infusion had run out, and Arthur - he - he was still asleep."

"Did you drop in after him?"

He shakes his head. "Didn't want to risk it with the bad mixture. And I had to explain to our erstwhile employer why we would not be delivering the goods as planned. Which she was quite thrilled about, as I'm sure you can imagine." But he's holding back. So she lets him go quiet but keeps hold of his hand as Yusuf guides the van through the city. Finally they pull up to a small stucco house with a sickly-looking tree in the front, and Ariadne slips her hand free so she can help bring the crates inside. Yusuf has commandeered the kitchen and the downstairs bath, and there's no sign of a bed in the living room, so she heads up the stairs with trepidation.Two tiny bedrooms are on one side of the landing, both empty; she pushes open the door to the third feeling like she's in a fairytale and is about to see something horrible.

But it's just Arthur. He looks like - well, like he's just sleeping. His hair is falling out of its slicked-back style and he's all stubbled, but those are the only things out of the ordinary. He's still breathing. Just asleep. If only it were easy as kissing him awake. She backs out of the room and shuts the door softly, as if the noise might wake him when nothing else has.

Eames is pressed against one of the other doors when she turns around; someday she'll have to ask him how he manages to sneak around so effectively being so big. She grabs his arm and pulls him into one of the little rooms and drags him to sit next to her on the bed and tucks her feet up underneath her and fixes her gaze on him.

"Now will you tell me why you didn't go back after him? And don't tell me it's the drugs, that wouldn't stop you any other time."

"Don't," he snaps, starting to get up, and she pulls him back down and shoves him a little to make him sit further back. And maybe he's just hit his breaking point because he sort of crumples in on himself, shoulders hunching and head dropping down.

"Fuck, Ariadne, you've no idea, do you?" His hand goes to his pocket, and she looks away.

"I've been to Limbo, Eames. And --"

"Yes, for a few minutes. And you - you don't understand. You don't - I'm a Forger, all right? I spend my time in dreams being other people, I do that half the time when I'm awake as well. Do you have any idea how easy it would be down there to lose myself? It happened to Mal and she was so sure, so easy in herself. I'd be lost so fast... not just thinking it was my reality, but thinking I was someone else." His voice is ragged and strained, like he's hauling stones out from the bottom of a well. There's really nothing she can say to that, so she touches him, brushing the unwashed hair out of his face and putting a hand on the side of his neck. It's not even surprising when he hauls her into his lap and holds her close, sucking in breaths like he's been under water too long. She's holding the back of his head with one hand and rubbing his shoulder with the other when he says something she doesn't quite catch.

"After what?" Her voice is steady. That's unexpected. She feels his cheek shifting against her throat. Is he smiling?

"After we'd sorted things out. We can talk about that later, love." He pulls back and kisses her gently, just once, chaste and light. "You get some sleep, and I'll go help Yusuf unpack."

She eyes him skeptically. Sorting things could mean a number of different possibilities and she has more questions now than she did before. "Won't sleep just make me even more jet-lagged?"

"With any luck, you'll be dropping tonight, so you may as well rest." He cups her face, small and delicate against his big calloused hand.

"You should rest too." It's too easy to weave her fingers into his hair and tug just a little. "When's the last time you slept?" The lack of effort he puts into pretending he's fine tells her everything she needs to know. She wants to tell him that she'll get Arthur back but she can't bring herself to assert that, not when she's not sure whether it's even possible. "Come on. Yusuf will manage fine without you." Either Eames really is exhausted or he's been waiting for someone to tell him what to do; he sits patiently while she toes off her shoes and strips off half of her clothes, removing his belt and kicking his loafers under the bed. And then he curls up beside her on the narrow mattress and tucks her head under his chin and wraps his arms around her, and somehow she thinks it's less to keep her from falling off and more to keep himself from falling away.

 

19 // so i ran faster but it caught me here

 

As much as Ariadne would prefer to drop the moment she wakes up from her jet-lag-induced nap, that isn't going to happen. Yusuf hooks Arthur up to an IV and spends the next few days holed up in the kitchen, analyzing what's left of the bad somnacin and putting together a counteragent. He wants to give Arthur's system time to flush out whatever sent him down and locked him in. The rest of it will be up to Ariadne.

Patience has never been the first of her virtues, and there's little she can do to plan for whatever's waiting down there for her.

"The thing is," she says to Yusuf while he's washing glassware, perched on the counter near him. "He's probably not in Limbo at all."

"How so? That's what the dreams are built on, no?" he asks. He doesn't look up from the sink but he's clearly attentive, head cocked slightly.

"Sort of. Limbo is what happens when you have multiple dreamers. It's a shared space. That's why regular dreams collapse into a blank slate if there are too many external stressors. If it's individual it's just... whatever's inside your head."

"So Arthur is in a labyrinth of his own making?" His gaze flicks to her for a moment, and she snaps the dishtowel at him irritably.

"Stop that," she says. There's a reason she didn't pick a spool for her totem, and there are things she doesn't want to live up to. Especially not here; they might not be in Crete but she's beginning to feel a little superstitious, feeling like Oneiros and Thanatos are breathing down her neck and jealous Hera is going to punish her for her temerity. But that's all silly and made-up.

Yusuf shies away from the dishtowel and chuckles, handing her a beaker to dry off. "Did you learn this during your experiments?" he asks. She isn't sure how much Eames might have told him about her job, but it's easy enough to talk about what she's been doing for the past year, nondisclosure agreements be damned. Surely there's an exception for talking to known criminals. It's not as if Yusuf is going to poach their research or steal Dr. Hwang's thunder by coming out with an article three months before her.

"They weren't my experiments," she says finally. That earns her a shake of Yusuf's head.

"You hypothesized, tested and evaluated. And you have learned a great deal, it seems. You're certain about not returning to our line of work?"

"It's not for me," she answers as he turns off the water and takes the dishtowel to dry his hands. "But I may need a supplier."

"I can recommend some to you. Unless you'd like to visit Mombasa - but smuggling does not strike me as your strong suit." He grins and she laughs, and for a moment it's just nice to be in the kitchen with an old friend.

Eames doesn't spend much time around her, and she's not sure if that's out of guilt or frustration or simple wariness. He gives Yusuf as much information as he can about the bad somnacin, he occasionally makes tea or endless glasses of water, but mostly when Ariadne goes looking to bring him some food he's sitting by Arthur's bedside. A pointless vigil, but she can understand the impulse. Part of her wants to offer to relieve him at his post. But frankly it creeps her out a little, and the last thing she needs when she's planning to infiltrate Arthur's subconscious is to sit with him imagining all the terrible things that could be going on inside his head. Instead she sketches and draws endless mazes in all sorts of shapes and goes down to the neighborhood market every day for fresh pitas and yogurt with honey and squares of baklava that stick her fingers together and make her think of long-ago childhood trips with her parents. Would this feel less surreal if she didn't have years of memories tied to this country, to the baking heat and the scrubby trees and the bowl of blue sky overhead, to the gods that still seem to tread the land beneath her feet and demigods and heroes stealing girls with her name?

Finally, agonizingly, Yusuf decides that conditions are suitable for her attempt. After months of dropping in a sterile, clinical setting with electrodes pinned to her head, lying down on the scratchy felted blanket next to Arthur feels incredibly unsafe. But her first shared dream happened in a lawn chair stolen from someone's backyard and placed in a disused warehouse. This is positively sparkling by comparison. Eames hooks up Arthur with careful attention, taking a moment to find a usable spot in a forearm that's pocked with the marks of his profession. Ariadne is about to connect her own lead when Eames beats her to it, the gentle touch of his fingers almost an apology for his distance over the past few days. When he finishes, he presses a kiss to her palm, and when her bewildered gaze catches his he smiles briefly.

"When you're ready, Ariadne," Yusuf says, standing at the foot of the bed with the PASIV before him. "We'll be waiting." She nods and he pushes down the central plunger, and

There's no beach. No wind, no light, no sound of crashing waves, no water pouring over her head and into her mouth and nose and trying to steal her breath. Blinking, her eyes adjust; she is standing in a dimly lit hallway, polished wood floors stretching away in either direction and doors lining the walls. If this is what Arthur is really like on the inside, she isn't sure if that's perfect or a little pathetic. Then again, she rarely looks inside her own head. Maybe it's organized neatly in a clean Modernist structure. This feels a little dusty, though, even if the floors are clear and the air is clean. It's just... still. And quiet. And some of these doors look like they haven't been touched in ages even without a coating of dust.

The hallway is straight in either direction and seemingly endless. Or at least it looks that way. Who knows what sorts of tricks and traps and dead ends Arthur has built into this place? But Ariadne flat out refuses to dream herself a ball of thread. She'll figure this out herself. She glances left, then right, and shrugs and heads for the end of the hall. Maybe Arthur is so meticulously organized that he'll have a map in the stairwell. Assuming there is one.

The hall bends eventually but doesn't stop, and finally Ariadne makes it to a set of double doors. Cautiously she pushes one open, sighing with relief when it's just an empty stairwell. A very nice one, with hardwood treads and a banister that looks like it's been carved or grown out of one huge tree. But the stairs are standard other than that. If it were her head, she thinks, they'd be spirals.

So the question becomes: up or down? And which is which? She looks around and doesn't see a map, so she goes back the way she came. This time she pauses to look at a door. Helsinki, it says, and she opens it and sees - nothing. No, that's not true, there's a small card table in there with a phone book and an old-fashioned rotary phone. The phone rings and Ariadne startles, feeling like a cat with its tail up and fur puffed out. Without thinking she darts forward and picks up the phone but hears nothing but whispering and a faint thread of what might be harp music.

The next door says Athens, but when she opens it there's overwhelming light and heat. As she closes the door she thinks she hears a low chuckle that sounds like Eames. Behind another door is a tiny closet stacked floor to ceiling with the notebooks he favors, flat on the backs with notations on the bottom of the pages. It's either code or shorthand, and she doesn't want to waste time trying to decipher them. So she closes the door marked Scientia and keeps walking.

There's another stairwell at the other end of the hallway and she follows this one down to the next floor. Ariadne is operating under no particular logic; there's no feeling of the right place to go, no sense of an end of the dream tugging her onward. Besides, he might be moving from room to room. It would be fitting that he wouldn't feel safe, even here inside his own head. So far there haven't been any projections but that doesn't mean there won't be any. Shivering, Ariadne pulls her sweater tighter - she recognizes it as one of the baggy cardigans she was wearing the last time Arthur visited, the rusty color like a splash of dried blood against her dark jeans. And yet her feet are bare, soles slapping lightly against the wooden floors. It reminds her of the halls of some of the older colleges she's visited with her parents, before everything gets renovated into clean white plaster and dingy carpet or squeaky linoleum. Maybe Arthur went to one of those schools. She's never asked him.

The rest of the floor proves just as mystifying but not productive - a room papered over with numbers, a room where the floor is covered in ticker-tape that's covered in Morse code, a door that let out nothing but bewildering chatter in so many languages talking over one another that only senseless noise dominates. At the other end of the hall is a window, the panes too clouded to see through and the frame firmly locked. None of the doors seem to have changed places as she walks back down the hall to the stairwell, which is mildly comforting. Easier to find a moving target in a stationary maze.

The next floor down the lights seem a little dimmer. But that might just be her imagination. That sense of dust in the air is growing heavier, though, an impression that isn't dispelled by the room full of encyclopedias or the door that reveals many tight-furled cylinders of maps. A laugh escapes her throat when she finds a player piano that starts rattling off a ragtime tune she almost remembers; did Arthur play the piano? How did she not know that about him? That thought cuts the laugh short and she eases the door shut. Another room draws her in past the threshold; it's full of stars, and when she steps in she realizes she can't see the ground. It might be her imagination, but she thinks there's an arc of stars that's brighter than the rest. And she can pick out Orion as well. But the lack of floor and the swing of the stars is too dizzying and she fumbles behind herself for the knob and pulls herself out.

There's a scheme here that's eluding her, and the knowledge that it's all organized is maddening because she can't quite puzzle it out. What does the room with the empty fish tank mean? She can guess why the door marked New Orleans hides nothing but a blare of sound and music and the scent of magnolia and alcohol, but why is the one marked Houston a room full of mirrors? What's inside the wardrobe in an alcove that's rocking back and forth? Maybe if she finds Arthur soon she can ask him. If he hasn't already lost his damned mind.

Down to the next floor, darker still, and she's opening fewer doors now. One room holds nothing but bolts of cloth. Most of them are in the neutral tones Arthur favors, pale as bone, dark as earth, an incongruous heap of camouflage, but there are splashes of color - a salmon silk, rich purple satin, weathered blue denim, and a slender fall of saffron, and probably more if she ventured down the aisle but she doesn't have time for that right now. She opens one door and almost screams, because she thinks she sees a child inside and projections of children still make her nervous. Then she realizes it's a mannequin and she does scream. Quietly. It's wearing pyjamas with dinosaurs all over them and has a mop of brown hair and it has, amazingly, a stuffed stegosaurus clutched in its arms. Ariadne backs out of the room and shuts the door and leans against it. That's worse than the bathtub full of something milky that she only sees from the doorway marked PASIV Mk. II.

But amid all the confusion there are things she recognizes, from his stories and from the short time they've known each other. Mumbai is nothing but pouring rain and Eames's delighted laughter. Day 3 is the warehouse and a scrap of her own voice talking about "...pure creation." A door marked in Hebrew holds darkness and flickering flames and soft chanting. One room is nothing but a screen with a projector and film reels; the top one says "Sherlock Jr." There's a door for Yusuf, a door for Saito, and one marked Fischer Job that she touches with her fingertips before walking away. Other doors with names she knows from other jobs he's described, one that says Nash that's been nailed shut and some that have padlocks. And yet when the doors are closed to each room and the sounds are shut away, she hears nothing but her own footsteps and breath and heartbeats. Ariadne hasn't been willing to admit it to herself, because the possibility that she can't find him is not one she'll consider. He has to be down here somewhere. And he would not run from her.

Sooner than she expected, she comes to the bottom. The stairs end in a blank square of concrete. Just beyond the circle of light cast by the bulb - bare in its socket down here, not ornamented by a sconce or shade - is a door that looks like something from a bank vault or a submarine. Arthur wasn't in the Navy, as far as she knows, but perhaps it's just his own way of demarcating whatever's down here. If she had the sense to be scared, she might be terrified. After all, Cobb hid the worst secrets of his life in the basement. But Arthur's left the door ajar and there's nothing standing in her way. And there's a light flickering behind the door, warm and soft even as the shadows bite it back.

It turns out to be one light for the whole hallway, stretching down into the darkness. Everything sounds soft, her footsteps swallowed up by the quiet. There are three names on the door to her right, William and Richard and Henry, and she eases it open and hears masculine laughter and a rustle of fabric before she shuts it. The door opposite has Mom & Dad; it's tempting but the doorknob is so cold under her fingers that it burns the skin and she snatches her hand back, jamming it under the other arm till she can feel the prickling of sensation return. Further down are Phillipa and James, and Cobb - she wouldn't open that one for anything in the world, or the one next to it marked Mal that has an ornate key stuck in the lock. There are a few more doors with names she doesn't recognize and walks past slowly. And then where the light shades into darkness, just barely catching on an enormous furnace at the back of the basement, she sees two more doors. On the left, instead of a nameplate, is a maze in the shape of a bishop; on the other is a roulette wheel with a poker chip in the center. For a moment she wants to laugh, because it's so painfully literal, and laughing would keep her from having an overflow of emotion that is really goddamned inappropriate for the situation. Those are two doors she would never dare open. After another longing glance she shakes her head and keeps moving out of the light.

There's something in the dark there, next to the furnace, and Ariadne reaches in her pocket and pulls out a flashlight - then changes her mind. It becomes a glowing sphere of no particular material, casting a softer light on the hallway. And what she thought she saw resolves into one booted foot and a skinny leg in dark brown fabric.

"Arthur?" She steps closer, careful, bare feet soundless on the concrete beneath her. There's no metallic click of a safety but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a gun.

"Are you real?" It sounds frighteningly young. But the foot looks to be the right size and it's wearing one of those boots he adores and wears with everything. Is this what Arthur sounds like when he's scared?

"Yes. How can I make you believe me?" She rounds the corner of the great metal tank and sees him, looking - well, looking like Arthur. A terrified and exhausted and improbably bearded Arthur, but still the man she came down here looking for.

"I don't know," he admits. His hands are empty, loosely resting on the knee of his other leg, curled up under him. His collar is open and his throat is - what are those lines? She's never noticed them before. "But you're not wearing a dress. You always wear a dress when I project you. I don't know why."

"How long have you been down here?" She sits down gingerly, close enough to touch but not touching him, and settles the glowing sphere in her lap. It's not as hot as she expected next to the furnace.

"Too long. I stopped counting after a week. Figured either someone would find me or I'd stop caring." He reaches over for the sphere and she can see more lines down his wrist, and -

"Arthur." Her hand catches his, turns it over towards the light. Those are scars. "What have you been doing?"

His smile is utterly empty, bitter and strange. "Tried to wake myself up. It didn't work. So I stopped." Now that he's been pulled closer to the light she can see the scars on both temples, circular wounds that have healed over cleanly. "Whatever was in those compounds kept me down." Ariadne can't stop her fingers from running up his wrist, lifting his hair away from his face, and he flinches like the skin is still tender, so she stops.

"It was nasty stuff," she says, letting her hand fall to rest on top of his, cradled on the bend of his knee. "Yusuf wanted to make sure it was out of your system before I came in."

"What about Eames?" If he were himself that would probably sound casual, but instead his voice quakes like he can barely hold back - rage, and sorrow, and worry.

"He was sick," she says frankly. Which is true. "But he made it out. And then he called Yusuf, and then he called me."

"And you came?"

"I came to get you," she says agreeably, and the sphere shrinks and disappears. Arthur's hands fold around hers in the dark. "Let's go."

She leads him out of the basement, resolutely not turning towards the doors lining the walls, and doesn't pause on any of the floors. But she does ask the question that's been waiting behind the fear and the concern and the held-breath atmosphere.

"Did you build it like this on purpose?"

"Memory palaces," he says, reaching one hand out as if to touch a door marked Grant. The other hand stays linked with hers. "You have to have a system."

"Even for your subconscious?" The lights have been getting brighter as they walk, she realizes, the ornate sconces throwing fewer shadows on the walls and floor. Are they staying lit behind them? Part of her doesn't want to look back - the fatal mistake, she remembers from Orpheus and Aeneas weeping over Dido and the other stories her parents told her at bedtime. But Arthur's beside her, holding her hand. She decides not to risk it.

At the top floor they stop. The stairs end and the walls of the stairwell are blank.

"Well?" she asks. If this were a regular dream she'd add a door. Here, though, that could have unfortunate consequences. Arthur gives her a look and then glances upward, and she realizes that the skylight is actually built to open all the way. "Can you give me a boost, then?"

His mouth twists in something that might be intended as a grin, and he crouches down in front of her and cups his hands. Those long, strong fingers are cold under her bare foot as he vaults her up and she steps onto his shoulders; they wrap around her ankles to keep her steady while she fiddles with the latch. It comes free with a few flakes of rust and she hauls herself through, rolling onto the slate tiles and scrabbling not to slide down the gentle slope. There's a clang and a thud as Arthur heaves himself through the skylight and nearly rolls on top of her. His hand grips her elbow, to steady them both.

"Not much out there," he says. There is a great quiet forest surrounding the - the building; she hesitates to call it a house. Trees close together block out the rest of the world. Or the void that would be there instead. It's easy to mistake nothingness for shadows through the branches and leaves, shifting to fill any gaps.

"There doesn't need to be, I suppose," she says, shifting and finding his hand with hers, slotting her fingers between his. "Are you ready?" They stand and walk to the edge of the roof, and though she hasn't noticed anything moving or the trees growing smaller or the building shifting they're now far higher up. A proper height. It's not the fall that kills you, she thinks, and presses her lips together.

"This better work," he says. The tone is skeptical and purely him, but his hand is tight around hers.

"Trust me," she answers, and they jump.

 

20 // tell me you're crazy maybe then i'll understand

 

Yusuf stays for a few more days to monitor Arthur; he needs to get back to his responsibilities in Mombasa, but he wants to be sure Arthur's clean. And sane, she thinks, but nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about how he might turn into another hollow-eyed waking dreamer, even though he always nods with satisfaction when he rolls his die. He's still rolling it far too often for Ariadne's tastes.

She worried, after they woke up, whether he would believe it was reality. Whether he'd keep trying to wake himself up. But he only tries once; she walks into the kitchen to find him with a bright crimson line down his arm and a knife in his other hand. He looks up with eyes that are far more calm than she expected.

"They always healed faster," he says, and then she's pressing the dish towel against his arm and the knife is clattering into the sink. It's a shallow cut, smallest of mercies, and the bleeding soon slows and stops. She pulls him into the bathroom and bandages him up. She can't meet his eyes.

"Please don't do that again."

"I don't need to." He catches her hand. "It didn't heal, so I'm not stuck in my own head anymore, Q.E.D." His eyes are dark and intent when she looks up. Does she have any choice but to believe him?

The next day Ariadne sits on the roof, back against the low wall and face tilted to the sun. She hears the door and cracks an eye open, expecting Eames to show up with his crumpled pack of cigarettes. The forger's been avoiding both of them, as near as she can tell, tying up whatever loose ends remain with the botched job and catching up with Yusuf and determinedly acting like everything's fine. But much to her surprise it's Arthur stepping out of the dim shade of the building and into the heat. Part of her expects him to make a comment about how she's getting her shorts all dirty. The rest of her knows he's not much for snappy remarks right now. So she keeps her mouth shut and lets her eye close again and listens for the sound of his feet on the roof.

A shadow falls over her face; when she opens her eyes Arthur is standing between her and the sun. "Mind if I join you?" he asks.

"Of course not," she replies, squinting as he moves to her side. He plucks at the knees of his trousers and settles himself carefully next to her. He moves like an old man, like all his bones have turned to glass, like he's still not sure the ground beneath him will stay solid and real. Ariadne doesn't move, but she is acutely aware that his arm is very close to hers and that if she shifted slightly their shoulders would touch. Still she does not move.

"I never thought I'd see this again," Arthur says finally. She rolls her head onto her shoulder to look at him, feeling the heat that means a sunburn's coming.

"You've been to Greece before?"

"The sun." Suddenly she is embarrassed, and she's about to shift her weight so she has a hand free to touch him, when he continues. "You. I didn't think I'd see you again."

Ariadne swallows the self-deprecating questions of disbelief and fits her hand to his face. The sharp line of his jaw is blurred by the stubble that's struggling to form a beard, rubbing and prickling against her palm when he turns his face to hers. It's not that she hasn't touched him since he woke up, but she hasn't touched him like this in what seems like forever. Bandaging his arm was clinical. She's been looking after him, not looking at him. Time stretches out like a second-level dream as they move closer, his breath hotter than the still air around them. His lips are dry against hers and barely move, but his fingers card through the hair at her temple and send a shiver through her. She thinks of a maze and the bishop falling and a marble bouncing over a roulette wheel. When he pulls back with eyes still narrowed against the sun all the things she wants to say pile up on top of each other and she says precisely nothing.

The door creaks and she looks past Arthur to see Eames just as she'd expected earlier. There's a brief flash of something across his face, too dark and fast for her to name as jealousy or shock or intrigue. "Don't stop on my account, ducks," he says, voice too light and too hearty in the overheated air. Arthur drops his head to rest his forehead on her shoulder, and Ariadne rolls her eyes at Eames, and for a moment it feels like everything is back to normal again. Whatever that means. She feels greatly daring when she presses a kiss against the hair behind Arthur's ear. Her hand is now against the side of his neck and she can feel more than hear his intake of breath. But he doesn't move away from her. And she considers that a victory.

In the silence she can feel Eames doing his best to hold his tongue after that one remark, and she turns her head to find him looking out over the city. "Don't be an ass, Eames," she says, angling her voice away from Arthur's ear. "Come here." He glances over sharply, but after he's half-smoked his cigarette he ambles over and settles down behind Ariadne, perching on the low wall and letting his knee knock against her shoulder as he sits. She leans back against his legs. Amazingly, Arthur shifts to follow her, his long limbs folding as he arranges himself around her and her arm slides around his shoulders.

"Are you staying?" she asks, tilting her head up but not looking directly at Eames. In some ways it's easier not being able to see his face.

"No telling what trouble you two will get yourselves into without me," Eames says, voice light. His hand smooths down her hair, then stills.

"So you two --" Ariadne cuts herself off as Arthur tenses and Eames shifts. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You're ridiculous. Both of you."

"And yet you've decided to dally with both of us," Eames replies, lifting her hair away from her neck. "Which says something rather unflattering about your tastes."

"Eames, don't tease her." Arthur's so tired that what would normally be an order sounds more like a polite request, but he's still sitting up a little. He shifts so Ariadne's arm isn't stretching too far, which she finds promising. "Is this really a conversation you want to have?" he asks. "Is this what you want?"

"Yes," she answers immediately. Of course she does. Would she be here, between the two of them, if she didn't? There are things you do for friends and then there are the people for whom you'd do more, if they ask. If they need you. "Even if my taste in men is worse than Eames' taste in shirts."

"Oi," he says, pulling gently on a lock of her hair.

"Just - stay, all right? Till Arthur's better. We can figure things out from there." This seems like a fair compromise to Ariadne; if they're both here then the three of them can figure out just what it means. Because it would be foolish to think that just because she says she wants them both it's going to be that easy to fall into... something.

Arthur lifts his head to share a glance with her. "You think I need looking after?" It's probably meant to sound affronted but it just sounds tired, and Ariadne squeezes his shoulder gently.

"Yusuf does," she says, which isn't really an answer. But it would be yes.

"Which means you must really be crackers," Eames adds, throwing away his cigarette.

"Eames, shut up."

"All right. I'll stay." He sounds oddly subdued. If ordering them around and asking impertinent questions is her fate, Ariadne supposes she can handle that.

 

21 // mass. is so big it can swallow swallow her whole star intact

 

Arthur declines to join them when Yusuf's plane is scheduled to leave, so she hops in the rickety van with Eames and clings to her seat as they careen down the roads again. Leaving Arthur alone is a calculated risk, but it has to be done. His promises and assurances will have to be enough. The light and dust make it such that she can't tell if the streets are twisty, the other drivers are terrible, or Eames just can't drive at all. She and Yusuf are both laughing with relief when they finally stop, though, and she helps him get his suitcases out. Most of the bottles are staying, empty of their contents; a few are going on a boat to be shipped down the long way, through various hands.

"I wish you could stay longer," she says, even though she's not sure how much longer she's staying in Greece. It's not the place she wants to settle. Yusuf puts a heavy hand on her shoulder, looking down at her before he pulls her into a hug.

"I must get back. But if your travels ever bring you to Mombasa - well. I should like to go dreaming with you again." He pulls back and gives her a grin. "With fewer consequences, yes?"

"Yes," she agrees, and then he's through the doors and she's left standing on the pavement. A strange thrill runs through her then, climbing back into the van: it's just her and Arthur and Eames now, whatever that means for the three of them. They haven't really talked since that day on the roof. The men look a little easier around each other but they also seem to be avoiding one another still. One of them was always with Ariadne or Yusuf so they couldn't be alone together. A stupid phrase. Ariadne turns on the radio and turns it up, letting some horrible pop music she doesn't recognize fill the air with beats and static. Eames arches one eyebrow at her but returns his focus to the road.

When they pull up into the driveway, Ariadne heads down towards the road instead of up to the house.

"Where are you going?" Eames is leaning against the side of the van, looking nothing like himself in a pair of mirrored aviator shades.

"To buy milk." He starts to walk towards her and she shakes her head. "And you're going to stay here and talk to Arthur."

Eames pouts slightly at her, eyes hidden behind those ridiculous shades. "Ordering me around?"

"Get used to it. And stop being such a goddamned coward." It's such a perfect line that she can't resist turning on her heel, picking her way down to the street and not looking back.

Sauntering down to the market and buying milk takes less time than she hopes it will even going as slowly as possible, but it's still a good while later when she comes back up the hill and round the back of the house. There are a number of fresh cigarette butts on the ground outside the kitchen door. One is still sending up a lazy tendril of smoke. Ariadne wonders just how much time Eames spent stalling. A lot, if the raised voices she hears are anything to go by. She eases the door open and sets down the bags and slips off her sandals and creeps through the kitchen and to the bottom of the stairs, listening. Their voices carry quite clearly. It sounds as if Eames has only just come upstairs to talk with Arthur; was she really gone so short a time, or did he really spend the entire time standing outside dithering? She wants to smack him, but she also wants to hear what they're saying.

"I'm sorry. For leaving you in there." Eames sounds sheepish, she notes as she steps onto the bottom stair.

Arthur just sounds tired. "You did what you thought you had to do. Protect yourself. I'd have done the same."

"No, you wouldn't have. You'd have gone after me and damn the consequences."

“So why didn't you?” It's calm, not accusatory.

“Because I...” A pause. She can almost see his face twisting. “I was scared, all right? A big bloody coward.”

“So it was bad enough that you wouldn't follow me in, but you'd let Ariadne go instead?”

“She's better than me. You know that. Don't get all chivalrous on me now.”

“I can't believe you waited for her to fly halfway around the world while you left me in there to rot.” Now he sounds angry, properly angry, and she eases up the stairs and avoids the fourth step that always creaks.

“I didn't know what else to do, all right? I'm a bastard and a coward and --" His raised voice is cut off by a smacking noise, and there's the rattling thump of two bodies hitting the wall, and she hurries up the rest of the stairs more quickly, hoping they won't hear her footsteps over their fight.

"Would you just shut up?" Arthur says finally.

"I was trying to apologize," Eames says, and Ariadne can see them, Arthur pinning Eames's larger body to the wall.

"And doing a really shitty job of it." This time she can see why they paused; they're kissing slowly, Arthur pressing closer to Eames as if he didn't already have him backed into a corner, and she probably wouldn't be able to hear them if she wasn't standing out on the landing, arrested by the sight. Intellectually she knew this was going on between them. The reality of it, though, is more than she expected, and it is - if she's honest with herself - really fucking hot. She has to keep silent and keep out of the way, she thinks, even as Eames breaks the kiss and draws in a great breath of air.

"I'm a bit out of practice, darling," he says, making it sound like an endearment instead of an insult.

"Then I guess I can forgive you," Arthur says, sounding somewhat irritated, like he's still mad at Eames even though they're basically grinding next to the flimsy dresser. But under the irritation is fondness, low and soft in a way Ariadne isn't used to hearing him use for anybody else. A wave of jealousy surges in her chest, but then it subsides. If this is what she wants, then she'll have to get used to hearing that.

"So you guys are okay now?" she hears herself saying, voice straining for brightness when she isn't sure if she's envious or afraid or what. When the pair of them whip their heads around and Arthur springs back, she almost wants to laugh. Now she can see the reddened mark high on Eames's cheekbone, and she gathers her fraying courage and steps over, inserting herself between them and reaching up to touch the incipient bruise. "Or do you want to smack each other around some more?"

"No, no, I think we're past that part of the evening," Eames answers, blinking down at her. His hands come to rest on her shoulders, heavy and undemanding. "Unless you'd like to take another shot, Arthur?"

"I think I've got it out of my system," he answers. The bed creaks under his weight; Ariadne turns and goes to him, crawling up over the end of the bed to kneel next to him. He's leaning back and turns to look at her, and it's all too easy to lean in and kiss him. And while they've slowly been touching more, dropping kisses like endearments and courtesies through the day, she's unprepared when he lets himself fall down and pulls her down with him. The squeak she makes is smothered in his lips as she lands half on top of his chest.

"Is there anything else you'd like to get out of your system?" she asks, breathless. Arthur raises one eyebrow, then flashes a smile - it's so like before that her heart aches for a moment.

"Maybe. But I might need some assistance, if Mr. Eames would be so kind." He looks past her with mingled playfulness and hope, like he's still not sure whether Eames is going to join them, whether any of them are ready for this. Ariadne rolls off him and onto her back beside Arthur, craning her neck to watch Eames' response.

The bed groans again as Eames sits down next to her, trailing his fingers through her hair where it's fanned out over the quilt. "Really, Arthur. The entire English language at your disposal, and you say 'maybe'? Have you no sense of romance?" Ariadne lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding as Arthur chuckles, shifting onto his side so she's bracketed between them.

"I thought that was your department, Eames. Charming the ladies." He props his head up on one hand, the other skimming down Ariadne's arm till she catches it and tangles her fingers with his.

"And the gentlemen. Mustn't forget them." Eames leans over Arthur and kisses him and Ariadne watches, entranced, because it looks like they have a lot of practice at this part. Finally they pull away, looking into each others' eyes and seeming to get lost there. Ariadne clears her throat and both men turn to look at her intently and it's just a little unnerving, being the subject of all that attention.

"Hi," she says eventually, and it sounds stupid to her ears. Eames gives her a grin that she refuses to think of as cocky.

"No, love, we haven't forgotten about you," he says, bending down and kissing her slowly, taking his time. Arthur's hand rests on her hip, long fingers warm through the fabric of her shirt. "Are you sure about this?" Eames asks, lips brushing against hers, voice almost a whisper.

The only feasible response seems to be wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him back down for another kiss. And then there are lips on her throat, Arthur working his way down to her shoulder and scraping his teeth lightly over her collarbone and she shivers all the way to her fingertips. "Yes," she says, and "Hang on," and she tries to move her arm so she can either unbutton her shorts or pull up her shirt and nearly elbows Arthur in the ear. This is going to be slightly more complicated than she expected. Luckily Arthur just laughs and snakes a hand down to flip open the button on her shorts, and Eames helps her wriggle out of them, and then he sits up and pulls off his own shirt in one smooth motion that leaves her staring and wide-eyed. She's seen this before but it's still hard to believe sometimes - he almost looks like a cartoon, muscles on muscles with those tattoos swirling over his skin. Eames reaches across her and towards Arthur, and she watches him undo the first few buttons of Arthur's shirt one-handed.

"Come on, Arthur, we mustn't leave Ariadne waiting."

"Right, because you're not in a hurry to get me naked," Arthur says, but he's unbuttoning his shirt from the bottom up and shrugging it off just the same, fixing Eames with a wry glance. Ariadne just lies back and watches them, as they lean in for another kiss, and she feels really goddamned lucky right now. This time when the men pull apart they're both breathing a little more heavily. The afternoon light through the window gives the room a hazy feeling.

"Why am I the only one not wearing pants right now?" she asks, just to distract them. Eames' eyes are dark when he looks at her, his expression almost feral.

"Oh, I'm not sure, but I plan to take full advantage," he says. He leans down and pushes her shirt up, pressing his mouth to her stomach and kissing his way down past her navel and breathing over the wet trail to make her shiver. Ariadne scrambles backwards till she's lying diagonally across the bed and Eames takes up a position lying between her legs, palms flat against her thighs. Arthur is watching, eyes flicking back and forth like he doesn't know where to look first. She reaches for him, because how can she not? He helps peel her tank top off and palms her breast - Ariadne thanks her impulse to not wear a bra this morning - and leans down to kiss her just as Eames does the same over her panties. The noise she makes is halfway between a squeak and a groan. Arthur buries his face in the crook of her neck and laughs, more breath than sound.

"Arthur," she says, and it's meant to sound scolding but instead it comes out as a plea as Eames sucks gently through the cotton, his large hands holding her hips in place.

"Sorry," Arthur answers, kissing her neck and biting gently before he stands up and shucks the rest of his clothes. Eames lifts his head to watch as Arthur kicks his pants and boxers away and stretches out next to Ariadne, that same hungry expression on his face as he lifts a hand and palms Arthur's hip, thumb stroking down and in towards his cock. Arthur hisses and bucks towards him and against Ariadne and she catches her breath, reaching up to brace his shoulder.

"God, you - can you handle this?" she asks. Eames laughs against her stomach and she squirms, turning it into lifting her hips so he can slide off her underwear. When he lowers his head again and sets those stupid lips of his over her clit she inhales hugely, almost a gasp. Arthur cups her face in his hand and turns her to look at him, then kisses her as Eames sets about making her fall apart under his mouth. He's just too damned good with his tongue, here as in everything else, and Arthur is hitting every mark and slowly stroking her side and brushing up and over her chest to tease her nipples, and maybe it's just that she's spent so long in this tiny house with the two of them and never getting anywhere but it seems way too fast when her orgasm hits and she arches between them and gasps for air like she can't get enough oxygen.

Eames must take a few moments to take off his trousers because he's naked when he slides up next to her. He kisses her gently, chin slick and lips reddened, before putting his arm over her waist. But she still feels too keyed up, not nearly as relaxed as she normally would be, and she turns to Arthur and slides a hand down his flank and around to his ass and squeezes. He jerks again and shuts his eyes tightly and curses under his breath.

"Please," she says, rolling onto her side and pushing her hips against his, and his cock is hard against her thigh and he groans.

"Hold on," he says. She would, and wait patiently for him to fish a strip of condoms out of the nightstand drawer, but Eames has trailed his fingers down between her legs and is letting them dabble there, and it's making her a little incoherent. When Arthur turns back he curses again, louder, and reaches over and shoves at Eames' shoulder. "Jesus, can you - move, just..." Somehow they figure out what he means, the pair of them shifting so Eames is half-sitting up against the wall with a pillow shoved behind his back and Ariadne resting between his legs, cradled in his tattooed arms while Arthur kneels in front of her, rolling the condom on. She reaches over and helps - or interferes, possibly, stroking up and down and twisting her wrist as she does. Arthur closes his eyes again and draws in a slow breath, covering her hand with his own. Then he moves up a little and she's guiding him in and in and she tilts her hips up to meet him, and Eames makes a low noise of appreciation.

"Look at you. The pair of you," he says, close to her ear, and drops another kiss on her shoulder. Ariadne can't answer for a moment, just tips her head back and breathes, letting herself simply feel: filled up and held up and so full of sensation it's overwhelming, hands on her hip and shoulder and breast and belly, lips on her neck and brushing over her cheek and smearing words into her skin.

"Fuck," she says, coherence escaping her, and Arthur lets out a strangled noise that might be a laugh. "Yes, come on," she tells him. He starts to move and she can't keep quiet, moaning so loud she'd be embarrassed if she cared. One of her hands is digging into Arthur's hair, the other is clutching at Eames as he holds her up and leans past her to kiss Arthur and curse in a language she can't parse right now. She thinks, improbably, of tides and moons and eclipses tugging at the waves as Arthur thrusts again and again and Eames' cock nudges against her ass and the pair of them move and she is caught between them.

She tugs on Eames' wrist and his hand moves down and down and he begins tracing over her and down to where Arthur is sliding slickly in and out and back up, a slow lazy swirl that just makes the spiral of desire climb higher and darker inside her, and she is swallowing a star that pulses inside her and she cries out and knows nothing but that bright burn under her skin.

Soon she realizes Arthur is paused within her, all the way in, trembling with the effort, and Eames is bracing Arthur against her with a hand on his hip. With a kiss on Arthur's temple Ariadne tells him to go and he surges again, faster now, her thighs tight around his hips and Eames' hand raking down his back and he pushes forward even harder and trembles and stills and gasps without words.

Eames takes a ragged breath and lets it out slowly, rubbing a hand down Arthur's arm and up Ariadne's thigh. When she shifts a little against him he whimpers, which is a sound she's never heard him make, and she can't stop smiling.

"Yes, very funny, I'm sure," he says, sounding strained. Somehow she's reluctant to move, but Arthur sighs and manages to half-kneel and half-fall onto the bed beside them, flinging an arm over his eyes. Ariadne turns and kisses Eames properly, trying to make the kiss carry everything she's feeling and thinking right now, and he digs his fingers into her hair and cups the back of her head. He moans into her mouth when she works her hand between them and strokes his cock, fingers slippery with sweat. "Please, love," he murmurs. So she pulls away and slides down the bed and wets her lips and takes him in, suckling gently. She can't swallow him down but she goes as far as she can, letting her fingers wrap around his base and do the rest, stroking and twisting.

There's a nudge at her shoulder, different from the hand in her hair, and Ariadne pulls back to see Arthur, who swiftly takes her place with an ease that looks utterly familiar. His lips brush her fingers, still around Eames' cock, and she presses kisses against Eames' stomach and bites gently at the crest of his hip while she works her wrist in a slow curve and Arthur sucks him off. Above them Eames is swearing quietly, sacred and profane tumbling out of those ridiculous lips as she trades places with Arthur, who tells them how fucking amazing they look and trails his fingers through her hair and tugs gently. Arthur takes Eames in even deeper, throat working and mouth getting Ariadne's fingers all wet, and Ariadne rests her head on Eames' broad thigh and listens to the curses get all broken up as he comes.

Arthur pulls off and leans over and spits inelegantly into the wastebasket, and Ariadne laughs.

"Yes, hilarious," he says, reaching for her. She clambers over Eames' leg, curling into Arthur and bumping her nose against his. He kisses her, just a brief brush of lips, hand resting on her hip like it belongs there. A little while passes and Eames moves till he's behind her, then drapes his arm over her waist and rests his hand on Arthur's side. The breath he lets out ruffles the hair that's drying from where it was stuck to her neck. She wants to say something but nothing quite seems big enough for what's just happened, so she closes her eyes and lets herself drift on the sounds of the two men she loves breathing in and out.

 

22 // then you say "right this is all mine"

 

Somehow, Ariadne expects Eames to be the first one to leave. She hasn't talked to Eames or Arthur about how exactly they obtained the little house or how long they can stay on the outskirts of Athens, but intellectually she knows this can't last.

And yet she's the one packing up, getting ready to leave for a quick trip to Rome. Saito finally got back in touch with her, noting that he would be in the ancient city for a series of meetings and would she have time to show him her further work on the matters they were discussing earlier? One doesn't turn down a request like that. And Rome is a lot closer than Tokyo or Sydney or Los Angeles or any of the other cities where Saito does most of his business.

Arthur watches her packing, not raising an eyebrow as she rolls her clothes into tubes and stacks them inside the suitcase, wrapping the hard drive in a sweater before putting it in her laptop bag. "Are you bringing the PASIV?" he asks.

"I don't know if Saito has one," she says, shrugging. "He said there'd be a private plane to bring me over so there shouldn't be any issues. Are you sure you don't want to come?" She isn't sure whether she means to Rome or to the dreaming, but it's all the same at the moment.

"I'm sure. I have to clean things up here." Which is as much of an answer as she's going to get.

"Are you going to be here when I'm done, or should I look for you two somewhere else?" Ariadne can't look at him while she asks. His hand comes to cover hers.

"I have to go back to Chicago. But you - find a place, and we'll be there." That was definitely not the answer she was expecting, and Ariadne looks up. Arthur's watching her with that intent gaze, trying to impress upon her just how serious and truthful he's being. And Eames is standing in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame. When did he show up? He nods, arms folded, flipping his poker chip over and over between finger and thumb.

"Do you mean that?" she asks, looking between them, not sure whether she feels trapped or terrified or exhilarated. The man who couldn't even tell her the city he lived in, the man who sheds identities as easily as his clothes, both of them looking back at her with eyes clear and unwavering.

"I'm all in, love," Eames says. "As long as it's not too cold." His lips curve slightly, the smile doing nothing to cover his nervousness. If she can tell, it's for a reason.

"Pick a city. We'll help with the rest." Arthur is earnest, no hint of a smile, looking more relaxed than she's ever seen him with his hair still tumbling around his ears and brows slightly raised, hopeful. She thinks, anyway. And this is more than she ever expected from either of them, in spite of the words she's said and the things they've been through, the tenuous threads linking the three of them together. She can see that binding them to each other, knitting Arthur's steadiness to her curiosity and Eames' impulsive quicksilver wit, becoming something breathtaking, and it stuns her with how much she wants all of a sudden. Ariadne swallows hard.

"I have to go. I don't want to miss my flight."

They nod and leave the room, a glance passing between them that she chooses to ignore as she goes back to packing. She takes a cab to the airport.

The private plane is small and luxurious and Ariadne would curl up and take a nap if she wasn't so jittery. It's impossible to tell what's nerves at showing Saito what she's been working on and what's a somewhat delayed reaction to Arthur and Eames offering to commit to whatever the hell their relationship is going to be. They love her, improbable as it may seem; she barely feels like an adult, let alone one who's ready to settle down. And the thought that either of them will consider rearranging their semi-nomadic existences to join her anywhere - well. It's not something she would have wished for on a shooting star.

But soon enough she's in Rome, with a driver waiting for her and a sleek black car to take her away. Much to her surprise, Saito is in the back of the car, and absently she wishes she'd thought to check beforehand. Not that that would have done much good anyway; the chairman seems to do what he pleases, which would be really irritating if it weren't so scary. He was able to make Cobb's charges disappear. There's no reason he couldn't make her disappear if he wanted to. For now, though, she appears to be on his good side.

"I hope your journey was pleasant," he offers, and she nods, looking out through the tinted windows at the traffic and the rolling hills that lead to Rome. She hasn't been back to the country in years, and says so.

"Are you fond of Italy, then? I would have thought you would prefer Greece."

"At least my name isn't so unusual there," she says, with a tentative smile. She's as nervous as the day she interviewed for her graduate program. The feeling that everything is riding on the next few hours expands to fill her chest and rise up her throat. Saito leans forward and opens a cube that turns out to be a small refrigerated box, handing Ariadne a blackberry-lime sparkling water.

"Perhaps the trip has been more taxing than you realized," he observes, and she exhales. He's got a daughter a little younger than her, she remembers from some snippet of conversation on the Fischer job. He's not going to swallow her up and spit her out and leave her bones out to dry on the side of the Roman road. It's going to be okay.

They arrive at a hotel and Ariadne follows Saito into a lobby that, thankfully, looks nothing like her creations. She holds the handle of the PASIV case in white-knuckled fingers, leaving her battered suitcase to the mercies of the bellhops. The doors of the elevator reflect back golden blurry images, once more showing a woman barely cresting the shoulder of the man she stands next to. At least she bothered to wear heels for this.

Behind the door is a suite, pale gold carpeting and windows and beige walls and innocuous art, and a pair of armchairs and sofa arranged around a coffee table. It's a perfect setup, the bedroom through another door, the driver from the car slipping in to stand next to the door, a young woman coming over to assist with setting up the PASIV. Ariadne wonders just how much time Saito has spent dreaming, whether he's gone under since he went to Limbo with Cobb. Maybe not everyone who goes under comes back marked as terribly as Dom and Mal. Maybe it merely opened his mind to the possibilities. Or maybe this is the first time he's gone under since the Fischer job, more than a year ago now. Questions she can't ask him. She settles into the armchair while Saito reclines on the couch, and nods at the assistant, and

The light is green. Everything is green, the grass beneath their feet and the arching hedges that grow up to form a tunnel over their heads, sunlight filtering through in sparks and lances.

"Pretty," Saito says from behind her, and Ariadne presses her lips together. This is it. Time to go. She heads down the tunnel and doesn't wait for him to follow. There's plenty for him to be distracted by: globes of green grapes, sparkling like crystals. If he tries one he'll find it's already filled with heady wine. Getting intoxicated in a dream is fleeting, but the taste will stay in his mouth, dry and tart. Will he notice the ground start to slope upwards, the grass and dirt change to lengths of bark covered in moss? There aren't forks off this path but it curves ever so gently upwards and inwards, and there are strange creatures who will flit through. Birds colored like jewels singing snatches of songs he'll just barely recognize, squirrels with tails like foxes, monkeys with large ears and glowing eyes.

She waits for him at the mouth of the tunnel, bare feet swinging in the breeze. From here they can see that the path was woven through the branches and crown of an enormous tree, one that must spread its roots over miles. The leaves are wide and as long as her arm. Saito joins her finally, one of the squirrels perched on his shoulder, and Ariadne can't help the joyous laugh that escapes her. He laughs too, possibly the happiest she's ever seen him.

"Come on," she says, pulling a leaf off the branch.

"There's more?" he asks, guiding the squirrel to sit in his shirt pocket and taking a leaf of his own. "And how do we get there?"

In answer, she twirls the leaf between her palms and it spins like a helicopter blade. Holding it over her head, she steps lightly off the end of the branch and lets it carry her up and away. Saito is hesitating when she glances back. "Just go! You won't fall!" she calls back, then looks ahead. The updraft is carrying her towards a large cloud, mountainous in size, and then a gust of breeze steers her around and over the lip and a golden city is revealed atop the cloud's peak.

"Remarkable!" Saito says, voice reedy but clear in the air. She lets the breeze carry her up and over before she lets go of the leaf, watching it spiral up and away. The cloud is bouncy and yielding and tufts of it cling to her arms and legs when she lands, damp and cool and solid as cotton candy around her wrists. Ariadne scrambles to her feet and watches Saito land like Mary freaking Poppins. Like he does this every day. The smile on his face looks wide and happy and - really good, like he should spend less time being a serious titan of industry and more time enjoying himself.

"Let me show you around," she says, grinning back, and leads him under the portcullis and through the banquet hall, and they're climbing the southwest tower and

Ariadne wakes to a massive crick in her neck and shifts carefully, stretching slowly. Across from her Saito is sitting up, face calm and impassive as ever, but he catches her eyes and smiles with a flash of the same joy she saw in the dream.

"Miss Ariadne," he says when they're both properly awake, sitting with cups of espresso on the balcony and the bodyguard and assistant behind the French doors. "I should like very much to see what further experiments you have in mind."

"Projects," she corrects, then catches herself. "I mean, they're not really experiments, I'm done with laboratories for now." She sips the espresso and looks at her cup with skepticism; does Saito travel with his own espresso machine? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Then again, this is Rome.

"Regardless," he continues. "Any assistance you may require I will happily provide."

"What's the catch?" she asks. Eames would probably have a heart attack. Arthur would congratulate her on her boldness. Saito merely glances over the street, one side of his mouth quirking in something that might be a smile.

"The opportunity to see your projects. Not much excites me, Ariadne," and she thinks of a man who could buy an airline on a whim because it seemed easier than bribery, and keeps her mouth shut. "But your dreams do. I would like to walk in them again. And you say you can leave them with me, without sharing the same dream each time?"

She nods and explains how the hard drives work, and his eyes light up and she wonders whether this was a very bad idea, and perhaps he senses her distress because he leans forward and sets down his cup and meets her eyes.

"You are right to be wary, Ariadne. But I promise to you that I will not use your name or steal this from you. You say the university is using the technology; we will keep it a secret from them. I will share your name with my... acquaintances who may take an interest in your art. But they will know nothing of the details." He is serious and the weight of his attention makes it hard for her to breathe for a moment. It's more assurance than she expected. Ariadne watches him for another few seconds, then extends her hand. They shake and she exhales. This may be another terrible decision. But so far taking these risks has worked out pretty well.

"I don't think I want to settle in Tokyo, though," she says, taking another sip of her coffee. It's probably more caffeine than she should have after somnacin but she needs something to do with her hands.

"If you are good enough, they will come to you," Saito drawls. "Which reminds me, you may take my plane wherever you need to go. My business here is not yet finished.."

She thanks him, enough that he starts to look faintly uncomfortable, and Ariadne takes herself and the PASIV and her wayward suitcase down and out of the hotel and takes a cab back to the airport. She can't stay in Rome right now, she thinks, there are too many memories and too many resonances. She needs to go somewhere different and clear her head. Standing in the check-in area she looks at the departures board and tries to think of somewhere different, somewhere she can go and rest.

A week later she sends a postcard to Arthur's P.O. box in Chicago, and another to Eames's flat in London: the Fusilier's Arch in front of St. Stephen's Green. On the backs she scrawls the same thing: I like Dublin. Come see.

 

23 // and then it all seemed clear

 

After weeks under the burning blue sky of Athens, the gray clouds over Dublin are soothing as a cool compress over the eyes. Ariadne's sunburn fades as she explores the city, playing tourist in between more serious explorations. She gets texts and calls from Arthur and Eames, and once memorably a snapshot of the two of them, so tangled up that she has to follow the lines of Eames' tattoos to figure out just what she's looking at. That one she saves.

And yet she doesn't miss them. Or rather she does, but she doesn't ache with it. They'll be together again soon. They've said as much, and compared to their previous understandings this is like a double proposal. The weight of the trust they've placed on her is grounding; it keeps her in one place. Everything feels so new and so tentative that she needs something to keep her from spinning off into orbit.

Reading real estate listings is confusing and seems wrong on her own in a hotel bedroom; she keeps looking up to joke about the peculiar abbreviations with Eames or ask Arthur what he thinks about the number of bedrooms (at least two, she thinks, and maybe a third for a study or a library). Instead she wanders the city, taking pictures to send to her boys - they're both older than she is but she persists in thinking of them as boys, and as hers - and occasionally looking in if she sees a sign about a place that's on the market. There's one spot she keeps coming back to over the course of about a week. Finally she gives in to her curiosity and calls the number for the agency that handles it.

The building is a former whiskey distillery that's been converted into offices and apartments, old stone mashed together with gleaming wood and sparkling glass. It's a touch garish, but the bones of the building are solid and the light inside is good. Besides, she knows Eames will be tickled at the thought of living inside a distillery.

The loft the agent shows her is actually two flats combined; a previous tenant had wanted double the space and made the money available, but was no longer there. Nobody was interested in that much space at the going price, not these days. Ariadne stands and looks at the light pouring in the enormous windows and smiles. "I have a few calls to make," she says.

When they fly in, it's on separate planes - Arthur's coming from New York, Eames from Morocco - but they arrive on the same day and their bags join hers in her hotel room, the one with very little space but a very large bed. She drags them down to the riverside and doesn't think about falling vans (there are no bridges that tall here anyway) and past Croke Park and down to the distillery, and Eames gets this mischievous look that can only bode well. Arthur keeps it in until the agent shows them inside and up, his eyes flicking from spot to spot and probably noting every part of the building's security and what he could improve and what he'd have to add. But both of them take a breath when they walk in the door and see the flat for the first time. It's not as sunny as it was the first time she saw it but it's still gorgeous. And now that she's had the structure in her head for a few days she can see how everything would fit, the three of them moving into the space together, moving through the space and making it home. Arthur and the agent walk off to investigate the other rooms and talk about - plumbing, or something.

Everything seems to be going awfully fast for a moment and she can't quite catch her breath. Eames looks over and he must see something in her face, because he catches her up and twirls her around through the huge open room and she just starts laughing, the sound echoing off the ceilings.

"I'm glad you two are taking this seriously," Arthur says dryly from behind them, and Eames sets her down gently and dips her a little, still laughing as her hair brushes the floor.

"Perhaps I'm thinking of setting up a dance studio," Eames answers, and Ariadne has to smother another fit of giggles. The agent gets a look on her face like she's slightly confused but can't decide whether to make an issue of it.

"There's a dance school on the ground floor," she says finally. Arthur's lips twitch and Eames grins broadly and Ariadne tries not to laugh even harder. She's a mature and responsible adult who is totally ready to buy a property. Eames lets her go and she recovers and the three of them ask more questions and tell the agent they'll speak with her soon. Over dinner they don't even really have to discuss it; Ariadne just looks at the two of them over the plate of samosas and says "Well?" and Arthur and Eames share a glance. Eames nods and Arthur starts talking about how they're going to go about putting the money together for an offer and whose names will be on the paperwork and how maybe they can ask Saito for a favor to get their visas sorted out, and Ariadne is so happy she has to hold her mouth shut for fear of saying or doing something really absurd in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

After dinner they walk back to the hotel, taking turns holding each other's hands and strolling leisurely past the packs of women out for what Eames calls hen nights, then settle in for the evening. They're spread out over the room, Eames and Arthur at opposite ends of the couch and Ariadne sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Eames throws a wad of paper at Arthur's head.

"What's eating you, pet? You look like you're going to be composing bad poetry." His smile is easy, but Ariadne waits. Was today too much? Are they rethinking their decisions to come here, to stay, to choose this path?

"Nothing," Arthur says automatically, then stops and closes his notebook and rubs his eyes. "No. It's not nothing, I - what if I can't work anymore?" And there it is, what none of them have talked about. She breathes out the anxiety and lets herself turn her mind to a new task.

"You can still work. Got to get back on the horse, and other charming metaphors," Eames says, shrugging. "There's no hurry."

"I'm building pretty much constantly," Ariadne adds, looking up from her sketchbook. "And having someone's projections to test it might help."

"A paranoid army?" Arthur asks, face shuttered. "I don't think you want that."

"It's that or see someone, and I somehow doubt you'd be interested in that," Eames replies. "Think of it as exposure therapy. Or just work topside. You're still good at that." Arthur looks unimpressed with that idea.

"Work with me," Ariadne says. "At least for now. I don't know anything about contracts or deliverables or any of that, and you're better at talking to the kind of clients I'll have anyway. Till you feel ready to get started again, whatever that means. And if you want to go dreaming you can come in with me and you'll know it's safe." She puts down her sketchbook and crawls over to sit in front of him, propping her elbows on his knees. "It'll keep you busy, anyway."

"Saving me from my own boredom?" Arthur says, mouth twisting a little. He curls a lock of her hair around his finger. Eames moves to kneel next to him, putting one large hand at the back of his neck and stroking down the line of the tendons with his thumb.

"That's what we're here for, darling," he says. Arthur closes his eyes and leans into the caress and they sit there, folded around each other, and Ariadne wonders if they're hoping as hard as she is that this can actually work.

 

24 // do you think just like that you can divide this

 

A few months pass and Ariadne starts to feel settled into the contours of her new life, learning the streets and the grocery stores and the best places for takeaway. Their visas come through suspiciously quickly but completely legally; Arthur installs security systems and Eames shops for curtains and the three of them cause a ruckus testing out sofas and armchairs and mattresses. Her parents ask a lot of questions when she asks them to ship over some of her things from storage. While they're not entirely satisfied with all of her answers they help anyway. Maybe she'll ask them to come visit sometime. And she begins figuring out just what this new job of hers means, what it is to be powered solely by her urge to create and not projects or deadlines or a degree. Arthur slides all too easily into the role of her business partner, though he smirks when she calls him her very own point man after several hours going over grant paperwork and proposals and working up a dossier for the list of names Saito sends her. Eames takes a job or two but doesn't talk about it much with Arthur, and helps Ariadne refine her designs when she needs another set of eyes on them.

Even when she's not using the PASIV, it's all too easy to lose herself in her work for hours. It doesn't help that their loft is the size of a small town. She can sit in the studio drafting or building models or researching fractals and completely miss conversations or music or the sound of the shower. The journal Arthur brought her from Florence fills up with thumbnails and sketches and stories she wants to tell. She has huge file folders bursting with blueprints and drawings and photographs, clippings from magazines, fabric swatches, strips of paper with perfume on them. Her laptop has folders too, landscapes and music files and notes that look like found poetry more than anything else.

Finishing work for the day is like surfacing from underwater and taking huge gulps of air. Some days it's a grind and she thinks she should have finished her degree and taken a nice boring job with a firm. Other days she feels creation sparking off her fingertips and works until someone comes to drag her away and feed her. And then there are days like this one, when she's halfway through a project and waiting for everything to come together and stops at a reasonable hour because she doesn't have much to do. She's been on a kick of sunken islands and researching Atlantis and Kumari Kandam and watching old Jacques Cousteau documentaries and footage from the bottom of the ocean. Maybe she can convince Arthur and Eames to take a research trip. Somewhere warm with lots of clear blue water and overpriced drinks with umbrellas in them.

When she comes out of the studio, Eames is in the kitchen pottering about with mugs and teabags and the kettle is beginning to make the alarming shaking noise that means it's about to boil.

"Hello, love," he says when he sees her, smile lighting his face. She pads over and hugs him, face tucking against his side. He kisses the top of her head.

"When did you get back?" she asks, muffled by his chest. They were supposed to pick him up at the airport approximately twenty-four hours from now, but she's pleased to have him home early anyway.

"Just now. I shouted but I take it you couldn't hear me over that infernal music of yours." For that she pinches him and moves away so he can start pouring the water into the mugs.

"I'm sorry you don't understand the majesty of Sigur Rós," she says, getting the milk out of the fridge. "Is Arthur around?"

"He wasn't here when I got in, but I'm sure he'll turn up." Eames catches Ariadne by her free hand and pulls her back in, tilting her face up for a kiss. It lasts long enough that when he pulls away she realizes her fingers are wet with condensation from the milk jug. "Now that's a proper welcome," he murmurs.

The clank of the elevator warns them and they both look over to the front door, which creaks open to reveal Arthur laden with grocery bags and spattered with raindrops. "Eames," he says, sounding startled but pleased. "I thought you were coming back tomorrow." Eames crosses the space to relieve Arthur of a few of the bags, and the way he leans in to kiss Arthur looks oddly formal. But the happy hum Arthur makes is unmistakable.

"Couldn't stand the dreadful rain any longer, so I took off. I'm sure Cohen will spit tacks the next time I see him for not sticking to the timeline, but he can bloody well cope." Eames takes a look inside the bags, and Ariadne watches the pair of them feeling a swell of fondness in her heart. Not quite fond enough to help put away the groceries, though. "Were you going to cook me dinner?"

"There was no food in the house. And someone is really terrible about remembering to feed herself," Arthur says, walking past Ariadne to set down his bags on the counter and beginning to take things out.

"I'm standing right here," she points out, and he grins, the flash of his dimples still a miracle after all this time.

"And someone else was in another hemisphere. And smells like a plane," Arthur adds over his shoulder as Eames follows him in.

"Very sorry, darling, I'd just got in and wanted a cup of tea. Or would you rather I fall asleep in the shower and drown?" Eames drops his armload and reaches past Ariadne for his mug, downing half the tea with a grimace.

"Of course not. So it went well?" Arthur seems happy to be working with Ariadne, but he misses his old life, and his questions for Eames about the job betray his still-keen interest. Ariadne doesn't dwell on it, just circles around him to start putting things in the fridge. If he wants to start working in dreamshare again, he can. When he's ready. She tunes them out, letting the cadence and harmony of their voices fill her ears, and Eames finishes his tea and heads to the bathroom and Arthur turns on the stereo and puts on something bluesy and hands her a pair of bell peppers and asks her to chop them.

Later, much later, they're all curled on the couch together, Arthur with a book propped on the arm of the couch and Ariadne tucked into his side, her feet resting on Eames' lap and his hands draped over them as he drifts ever closer to sleep. She lets him; jet lag is nothing compared to the disorientation of dreaming, and he snatches rest whenever he can regardless of his circadian cycle. She closes her eyes, wanting to commit this to memory: the two of them bracketing her, warmth and safety and trust, Arthur absently twisting a few curls in his fingers and tugging ever-so-gently at her scalp, the smell of the risotto they made for dinner still heavy in the air and mixing with Eames' soap and tea and Arthur's aftershave and wool all blended till she can't separate it out, Eames' thumbs absently rubbing the pattern of cables on her socks, the lingering taste of the wine in her mouth crisply pale and the sound of distant traffic and the light rain and her own breath, pulsing in and out, regular as the waves.

"Falling asleep?" Arthur murmurs, and she sits up a bit and opens her eyes to see him holding the book closed with a finger marking his place, his other hand resting warm on her shoulder. Eames looks up, sleepy but content, watching them both with fondness and faith.

"No," she says, settling back down. "I'm awake."

 

Notes:

A thousand million thanks to alierakieron, my tireless beta and my biggest cheerleader; tons of kisses for everybody who kept me going along the way, especially saynotozombies, to whom I owe a massive debt in my characterization of and writing for Eames. And a huge, huge thank you to my artist cunning_croft, who came up with spectacular art and was incredibly gracious about dealing with my fumbling descriptions and requests and gave me something that made me squeak loudly at work. I have no connection to the Picower Institute, and I am pretty sure they do not have a PASIV device. Section headings and the title are from various Tori Amos songs; a mix of these songs is available for download in the master post on LJ, here. Arthur's mind palace is based in large part on the Boston production of "Sleep No More" by the Punchdrunk Theatre Company. All errors of geography and plausibility are my own.