Work Text:
It’s 10:30 at night, and Ariadne is standing in a bar in West Hollywood.
It isn’t one of the famous ones, but it’s on the Strip, and it’s appropriately dark and crowded and unsubtly retro chic. The walls are cluttered with vinyl record sleeves and band posters and framed covers of Rolling Stone, the bare concrete floor is painted matte black, the lighting is dim and strategically low. Jim Morrison is crooning about lighting fires on the stereo system, and everyone is thrift-store trendy in just the right way, pierced and tattooed and elaborately made up. The whole place has a certain plasticity to it, a fake music video kind of look that makes her itch to take out her bishop and test reality yet again.
Ariadne’s fingers twitch towards her pocket, but she balls up her fists and steadfastly refuses to take out her totem in public.
Instead she stands on her tiptoes and tries to peer over the sea of tattoos and carefully disheveled hair, but isn’t surprised she can’t see anything. The crowd is thick and a couple inches taller than normal due to their second-hand boots and impractically high stiletto heels, and she realizes she’s just going to have to push her way through the crowd until she finds who she’s looking for.
She isn’t pleased. When she called Arthur for advice on how to deal with the unexpected insomnia - okay, fine, on the pretense of asking for advice – she hadn’t expected to have to wade through a sea of bodies to see him. But then, she also hadn’t expected Eames’s cheerful but surprising, Just come, Ariadne. You can sleep when you’re dead. Or Eames, at all, really.
“Delightfully bohemian as always, Ariadne.”
The voice near her ear startles her; she jumps and whirls around, heart racing, and speak of the devil, finds herself looking up at Eames. He is dressed as he was on the plane, in the all black ensemble that makes him look a little bit like a 1950s Las Vegas gangster. His jacket is off, his sleeves are rolled up, and his gold watch gleams in the not-so-artfully low lighting.
He doesn’t quite fit his place, but he looks good. Very good.
“Sorry I startled you.” He’s wearing an amused little smirk, his eyes alight with mischief, and he doesn’t sound contrite at all.
Ariadne scowls, irritated with herself more than his puerile amusement. “Where’s Arthur?”
Eames gestures towards the back of the bar. “In the back, guarding the booth.”
Ariadne glances in that direction, grimacing at the thought of fighting through the crowd. She doesn’t usually have a problem with crowds, but after spending a week in her city dreamscape, hiding from the kind of crowd that could rip her to shreds and send her back into the endless nightmare of limbo, she’s suddenly feeling a little wary of large groups of people.
Eames must notice her hesitation and take mercy on her, because he suddenly grabs her hand. “Come along, Ariadne. Allow your humble servant to escort you.”
He plunges into the crowd before she can protest, leading her along behind him as he cuts a path through the press of bodies. She follows him closely, sometimes forced so close to him that she can feel the heat of his body against hers. She is suddenly very aware of him – his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the way his fingers curl through hers – and she finds herself irritated again.
It’s not that she had been oblivious to the significant level of attractive male she had been surrounded by for the past few weeks, but she prided herself on her professionalism and had summarily ignored it. There had been plenty of other things to be getting on with as it was, with the shade of Dom Cobb’s dead wife trying to kill them and all, without complicating things with an office romance, or worse, a stupid school girl crush. In fact, until Arthur stole that kiss in the second dream level - such a dick thing to do; she shouldn’t have found it so endearing - she hadn’t been distracted by any of them.
Now she was finding it hard not to be aware of Eames, and it was going to be worse with Arthur because, as much as hates to admit it, she has been attracted to him since she first met him, since he stood up, neat as a pin and the absolute antithesis of every guy she had ever dated, and held his hand out to her. She takes pride in the fact that she had so successfully ignored it, but now the job was over, and there was the little matter of that kiss, that ridiculous, smarmy kiss, and oh yeah, the way Eames smells when she is pressed against him by a surge in the crowd, like spicy cologne and sunshine, unfamiliar and inviting.
She is relieved when they finally emerge into open space, and Eames lets go of her hand. He leads her to the furthest corner booth, its position providing an uninterrupted view of the bar and the high backs providing a measure of privacy.
Arthur is waiting for them there, surrounded by empty beer bottles and whiskey glasses, and he’s a worse fit for this place than Eames. He is still in the dark three piece suit he wore on the plane; his only concession to casual is his lack of a jacket. He gives her a reserved but genuine smile when he sees her, the kind of smile that is more in his eyes than in his actual facial expression.
Ariadne’s stomach does this flip-flop thing; it’s really very undignified.
She slides into the booth across from him, unable to keep what has to be the dopiest smile in the universe off of her face. “Interesting choice in bars. I wouldn’t have pegged either of you for a place like this.”
Which is completely true - the retro-trendy feel of this place doesn’t match their born in the wrong decade style – but what she really wants to ask is why they are out having a drink together at all. She had been under the impression they disliked each other; the entirety of their interactions seemed to consist of sarcastic barbs and childish bickering, even when they were agreeing on things. Once and only once she thought she might have seen them smiling at each other without spite, but that was right before they took Fischer down to the third dream level and there was a lot going on just then, so she couldn’t be entirely sure.
She’s pretty proud of herself for not outright asking, but if the opportunity presents itself, she knows she won’t be able to resist.
“It’s not our usual kind of place. But someone,” Arthur says, inclining his head towards Eames, “was trying to buy into the underground poker game running out of the back.”
Eames scowls sullenly as he slumps down in the booth next to Ariadne. “And kicked out because some sodding pretty boy actor showed up and wanted in. I could act circles around him.”
Ariadne is curious in spite of herself. “Which pretty boy actor?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Eames motions vaguely towards the top of his head. “The one with the hair.”
“That narrows it down,” Arthur mutters and takes a pull of his beer.
“And just for that, Arthur, I’m not buying you another drink.” Eames shifts towards Ariadne, claiming loudly with his body language that he is no longer speaking to Arthur. “Ariadne, petal, what would you like?”
Ariadne glances between them. Eames is waiting for her order expectantly, Arthur seems amused, and aside from the fact that Arthur and Eames are out having a drink together, something about this is just weird. She can’t put her finger on exactly how, but it is. “Jack and Coke.”
“Lovely. I shall return.” And with that, Eames is up and away, swallowed up by the crowd in seconds.
Arthur suddenly shifts forward and sets aside his beer, like he had been waiting for Eames to disappear all night. He’s intent on her, his expression serious. “Listen, I have a question, but you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”
Ariadne’s heart trips in anxiety and anticipation. “Okay. What?”
“What did Saito want?”
Ariadne blinks in surprise. She wasn’t expecting that question. “What?”
“You got into his limo at LAX. What did he offer you?”
“You saw?” Saito had cornered her as soon as she had stepped out of LAX to hail a cab and offered her a ride to her hotel. She hadn’t exactly known how to say no to him – Saito had the kind of power that had gotten Cobb out of murder charges, after all – and by the time his limo had delivered her to her hotel and he’d had his say, she was absolutely convinced she was still dreaming and had to check her totem in the lobby bathroom before she even bothered checking in.
Arthur crosses his arms on the table, and Ariadne idly wishes he had rolled up his sleeves like Eames. “I did. I assumed he wanted something from you, or had an offer. Saito isn’t someone who does anything as simple as giving you a ride without ulterior motives.”
Ariadne hesitates half a second before she decides that it can’t possibly hurt, telling Arthur. He probably had insight to offer, since, as she understands it, he has the kind of gravitas in the mind crime world that makes it possible for him to cater almost exclusively to business magnates like Saito.
“He offered me a place in his London architecture firm after I complete my degree.” Ariadne picks up a damp cocktail napkin and reflexively folds it over and over again until it’s a small, damp triangle. “He says that if I can build in the real world with even the fraction of vision and detail I built in the dreamscapes, I could be a partner in the firm by the time I’m thirty-five.”
Arthur leans back, some of that intensity bleeding away, like he’s relieved. “He’s right you know. You’re the best I’ve ever seen. Better than Cobb, and for a very long time Cobb was considered the best.”
Ariadne never knows what to do with this kind of hyperbolic praise. She knows she’s good, but she knows better than to think of herself as the best, but she’s heard it out of Saito once today, and now Arthur, and if they keep this up, she’s going to start believing in her own genius.
She dismisses it with a shrug. “Well, even if it were true, I still have to finish my degree and that’s another year, maybe a year and a half.”
“Well, if you decide you want to continue in our line of work, I’d be willing to work around that, if you want to do both.”
Now Ariadne sits forward. “Wait. Arthur, are you offering me a job?”
He smiles and shakes his head. She might have said that too eagerly. “Not right now, no. But the next time I need an architect, the job is yours.”
She is a little overwhelmed. It is decadent abundance – the money from the Fischer job that means she never has to worry about paying for school again, a guaranteed job in an architecture firm after she finishes her degree, and now the chance to continue building dreamscapes, which is precisely what she had wanted in the first place but hadn’t quite figured out how to ask for it without seeming desperate.
“Finishing my degree is going to be time consuming,” she says, trying to sound cool and in control, but to her own ears, she sounds young and inexperienced. She just carries on though, pretending that sounded like a perfectly reasonable reply, because she wants it so very, very badly.
Arthur nods. “I would take that into consideration.” His eyes flicker away from her, out of the booth, and Eames suddenly reappears at the table, hands empty of drinks.
“We should go.” He seems irritated. “This bar is shit, and I’m tired of waiting to be served. We’d have more fun in your hotel room with a bottle of wine, Arthur.”
She half expects Arthur to protest, since he and Eames rarely seem to agree on anything that isn’t job related, but he just nods and starts sliding out of the booth. “The wine’s on you, Mr. Eames.”
“Of course it is. You’re rubbish at choosing a good vintage.” Eames grabs his coat and slings it over his shoulder like a big shot in a gangster movie. Ariadne hopes she isn’t staring. “Coming, Ariadne?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Eames flashes an approving smile. “Of course not. Come along, you two. Time’s wasting.” And then Eames is off in the direction of the door, apparently expecting that they’ll follow.
Arthur stands, pulls on his jacket. “We might as well go. Eames isn’t going to sit still once he’s decided he wants to leave.” He says it like it’s a fact of life, something he has resigned himself to dealing with on a regular basis, like paying bills or five o’clock traffic. Like it’s familiar and common. Like this is just how things work.
And that’s when she realizes that she has read the both of them all wrong.
***
“So tell us, Ariadne, why couldn’t you sleep?” Eames asks, handing her a glass of wine. Room service has come and gone, and Arthur is down to his shirtsleeves again, cuffs unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up just as she had hoped for at the bar. Eames has disposed of his shoes and socks and is roaming around the suite barefoot with no protest from Arthur. “Run of the mill insomnia or something more insidious?” He makes a shooing motion at her. “Budge over.”
Ariadne moves automatically, scooting to her left, towards Arthur. Arthur moves, too, but there isn’t much room between him and the arm of the couch. They end up pressed close, thigh to thigh; Ariadne does her best to pretend her heart isn’t fluttering ridiculously in her chest.
“You don’t have to tell us, of course.” Arthur says.
“That’s true. You don’t.” Eames settles next to her in a lazy sort of sprawl even though there is a perfectly serviceable arm chair and ottoman nearby. He stretches one arm out along the back behind her, and his shirt pulls back from his collar bone, revealing the edge of a tattoo, a design of some kind, or maybe stylized writing. She had noticed it once before, while showing the team the second dream level, but never again. She had thought it might be part of his personal mental projection, but apparently not. She tries very hard not to stare. “But if you’d like any decent advice on how to deal with the aftermath of dream sharing, I suggest you tell Uncle Eames all about it and resist any coddling from Auntie Arthur.”
The last earns him a glare from Arthur, and as usual, Eames just smirks.
“Okay.” She gets up and moves to sit on the coffee table in front of them, shoving a decorative bowl of glass pebbles out of the way. She can’t sit pressed between Arthur’s leg and Eames’s tattoos and carry on a coherent conversation. “I kept dreaming about limbo.”
“Not surprising,” Eames says and takes a sip of his wine.
“Just let her talk, Eames.”
Eames shoots his own dark look Arthur’s way, but Arthur ignores him and gestures at her to continue.
“Cobb and Mal had built this massive city down there. Really impressive stuff, but it was decaying and falling apart from disuse. Mal was down there, too. She had Fischer, and Cobb was offering to stay if she let him go. It’s all sort of a blur now, but somehow she ended up going at Cobb with a kitchen knife, and so I shot her.”
She feels weak all of the sudden. She pauses to take a drink of her wine, and wishes Eames had ordered something harder than merlot. When it was happening, she had been caught up in the moment, just trying to get the three of them out of there with their minds intact. But now it was hitting her, the enormity of everything that had happened down there. The danger of it, how close they came to ending up trapped there forever, in that huge, infinite city bordered by that infinite crashing sea.
Arthur and Eames are respectfully quiet, waiting on her to continue.
“When the kick hit, the city started to collapse around us,” she says after a moment and another mouthful of wine. She isn’t much of a drinker, so the wine is already starting to warm her inside. She still wishes they had something harder. “I jumped to ride the kick back up, but it seemed like I was falling for years. Like it would never end. That was the worst part. I thought I would go crazy before I ever hit the ground.”
Arthur leans forward, arms resting on his legs, holding his wine glass between his knees. “And your memory of the kick kept waking you up.”
Ariadne nods. “After the third time, I just gave up on sleeping.”
“That’s why going as deep as Cobb and Mal did is bad business,” Eames says with distaste. “I never understood their desire to push deeper.”
“It’s tempting to see what you can with your mind.”
“Of course it’s tempting, Arthur, but there have to be limits. Mal and Cobb never understood that. They assumed the subconscious was their own personal playground. I personally try to have a little more respect for the secret workings of the mind.”
Arthur has some sort of reply, but Ariadne zones them out, hands clenched between her knees. This debate could take all night, if what she had witnessed in their day to day interaction is any indication, so she cuts them off with a sharp, “Do you mind?”
Both men stop talking and turn their attention to her.
“I’m a little freaked out now that I’m processing everything, so if you have any advice, now would be the time to give it.”
Eames and Arthur exchange a look. An entire conversation passes between them in an instant. Arthur’s expression darkens, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Eames shrugs, amusement slightly curving the corners of his mouth. The air is suddenly charged, and Ariadne doesn’t know what to make of it, this silent and electric communication between them.
“Your call, darling,” Eames tells Arthur.
Arthur seems to tense even more. “This isn’t like the other times.”
“I wouldn’t do Ariadne the disservice of thinking it is.” Eames is dangling his glass over the plush white carpet, letting it pivot on the tips of his fingers.
“What are you two talking about?” she asks, looking between them, irritated and curious and apprehensive all at once.
Arthur turns his attention back to her. Something has changed; he seems coiled up tight, ready to spring. “We might know something that will take the edge off.”
Eames, in contrast, seems to be uncoiling outward, taking up more space by the minute, his body radiating relaxation. “Arthur might know. I, however, can guarantee it’s a cure for insomnia.”
She glances from one to the other. “What?”
Arthur meets her eyes steadily. “Sex.”
She blinks in surprise. “What?”
“Sex, Ariadne. Shagging. Fucking.” Eames says the last with relish. “Perfect way to distract the mind after the day we’ve had.”
Her face goes hot. “That was rhetorical, Eames.”
“You don’t have to.” Arthur looks like he dearly wishes he could take the offer back. “No one here will be offended if you say no. It’s just an offer.”
“We will, however, be terribly disappointed.” Eames smiles at her like the snake must have smiled at Eve in the Garden of Eden. “Arthur especially. He’s been fantasizing about you since you walked in and started calling Cobb on his bullshit.”
Arthur turns one of his dark glares on Eames, but a blush is spreading rapidly across his cheeks. With a horrified sort of awe, Ariadne realizes that Eames isn’t teasing Arthur, or trying to embarrass him. He’s telling on him, giving away his secrets.
Something brittle in Ariadne snaps. She can hear her heart pounding and the blood rushing in her ears as she gets to her feet.
“Excuse me,” she says politely and walks out of the room.
She finds the bathroom on automatic. It is nearly as big as her bedroom in her Paris flat, with a long marble counter and a huge, rainfall shower, but Ariadne doesn’t notice it as she shuts herself in and locks the door. All she wants, all she can think about, is checking her totem against reality to make sure she isn’t dreaming.
Because she’s pretty sure Arthur and Eames just proposed a threesome to her.
She digs the bishop out of her front pocket and sets it on the counter. She knocks it over with a flick of her finger; it falls flat and doesn’t roll, so she isn’t dreaming. She does it a second time just to make sure. Still not dreaming.
She picks it up and clutches it tightly, like it’s her only tether to the real world. It is only now that everything is all over that she feels like she’s losing her grip, like she doesn’t know what to do next. She’s doesn’t like it. Not at all. She stares at herself in the mirror, as if her reflection has answers, but her reflection just stares back at her, as wide eyed and shell shocked as she is.
There is a knock at the door.
“Ariadne?” It’s Arthur. “Are you okay?”
Ariadne stuffs the bishop back into her front pocket and shares one last panicked look with her reflection before she goes to the door.
Arthur is just on the other side, wearing an impassive expression, but there’s still a faint blush on the apples of his cheeks. Ariadne is just so very attracted to him, designer suits, lacquered hair and all. Maybe even more than attracted. Maybe utterly infatuated is a better way to put it.
“Are you all-?” he begins, but Ariadne pushes past him before he can finish. She stalks back into the sitting room, the susurration of Arthur’s clothing the only indication that he is following.
Eames is still sprawled out on the couch like a cat lazing in the sun, one sleeve riding up just enough to show off the bottom of another tattoo on his bicep.
He eyes her knowingly. “Totem obeying the laws of physics?”
She doesn’t answer him either. She picks up her wine glass and drains what’s left in three gulps. She puts the glass down again and decides that yes, okay, going to bed with Arthur is exactly what she wants to do, and if Eames goes with them, she wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at the tattoos has been hiding for the past six weeks. But she doesn’t get what’s going on here, why they’ve made this proposition; she knows she’s read them all wrong, but she can’t figure out how or why they want her involved.
She looks between them, at Arthur standing at Eames’s elbow, his hands hidden in his pockets and his face carefully blank, at Eames next to him, watching her expectantly, an infuriating smirk lingering around the corners of his mouth. Finally, she says, “I thought you two hated each other.”
Arthur frowns a little, like that bothers him. “Is that how we seem to you?”
Ariadne is incredulous. “All you did was bicker and needle each other the entire time I worked with you, so yeah.”
Eames’s eyes dart to Arthur, a quick glance that Ariadne can’t parse. “Petal, you should have learned by now that things aren’t always what they appear.”
“Clearly.” She retreats to the other side of the coffee table, away from them, and sits on the ottoman. Her fatigue is suddenly overwhelming. This has been the longest day of her life, and she had spent half of it asleep. “I need more wine to deal with you two.”
Arthur nods and scoops up her glass. He disappears in the direction of the room service cart. Eames takes another drink of his wine, eyes on her over the rim of his glass. Behind her, she can hear the glug of the bottle as Arthur pours the wine.
The urge to check her totem washes over her, again.
“Ariadne,” Arthur says. She starts and looks back over her shoulder. He is right behind her, holding out the glass. She takes it, her fingers brushing briefly over his, and she drops her eyes, blushing.
“Thanks,” she says and takes two undignified gulps.
She feels Arthur move away from her, but he doesn’t retreat as far as she would like, going only as far as the arm of the chair just behind her. She turns her head a little, sees him out of the corner of her eye, and it suddenly occurs to her that they have her surrounded. They’ve been doing this all night, trapping her between them: in the booth at the bar, on the couch just a few minutes ago, and now here. She feels hunted, as if they are herding her, subtly moving her around until she’s in the right place, which is, for some reason, in bed with them.
It’s ridiculous. All of this is ridiculous, and if it wouldn’t compound the sheer level of ridiculous she has experienced in the last ten minutes, she would go back to the bathroom to check her totem again.
And that’s when she realizes she’s going to do this. There are so many reasons why it’s a terrible idea, but everything else that has happened since Miles pulled her aside to meet Mr. Cobb and hear about his job offer has been considerably off the map of her experiences, so a threesome with two very attractive men would only be an appropriate epilogue to an already bizarre day.
She leans forward and sets the glass on the coffee table. “Okay. Fine.” She gets to her feet and shrugs off her jacket. “Let’s do this. But I want to be clear that I don’t appreciate being manipulated. Next time, just come out and ask me.”
Eames gives her his here, have a bite of this apple grin. “Duly noted.”
She turns to Arthur. “Come here,” she says, and before he can do so much as twitch, she takes his face in her hands and kisses him.
He tastes of the red wine they’ve been drinking, and he smells amazingly masculine, like expensive aftershave and leather. He’s completely taken aback by her sudden attack, she can tell by how it takes him half a minute to get with the program and return the kiss. But then he’s quick to pull her closer, to slide one hand into her hair and rest the other on her waist, to hook one heel around the back of her leg like he’s worried she’s going to pull away at any moment.
He has absolutely no reason to be worried, though, because Ariadne’s anger is slowly dissolving, dissipating with any remaining reservations she might have had about doing this because this is good. Really good. Far better than the stolen dream kiss, because this kiss is real. Real and hot and wet, and those really are Arthur’s hands on her, and he really is kissing her like he’s devouring her, like this is his one and only chance to taste her.
On the other side of the coffee table, Eames makes an appreciative noise.
The sound snaps her back to reality, and Ariadne breaks the kiss, breathing heavily. She licks her lips, swallows thickly. She is overwhelmed and out of her depth; her heart is pounding in her chest, her whole body flushed and loose thanks to the wine.
Arthur watches her, concerned, and strokes the soft spot under her ear with his thumb. “Ariadne?”
Right. Time to man up. Either she’s doing this or she isn’t. “I just want to make sure we’re clear on one thing.”
“Anything,” Arthur says solemnly, like he’s ready to make any vow she requires of him.
“Somebody is buying me breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Eames begins to laugh, and Arthur wastes no time in leaning in to kiss her again.
***
Somehow they end up in the bedroom.
She thinks Eames might have taken charge of that, since he had complained that Arthur knew he hated shagging on sitting room furniture and could they please take it somewhere more comfortable? But she was rather distracted by Arthur’s mouth and his hands straying up beneath her shirt, and, you know, the whole threesome thing in general to really pay attention to unimportant details like how they got to the bedroom.
All she knows is that there’s a bed, and she’s on it, and Eames is the one kissing her now, straddling her, his arms braced on each side, trapping her. He tastes like red wine, but with something smoky underneath, maybe the whiskey he had been drinking at the bar, and his kiss is so different than Arthur’s, lush and decadent, like he’s savoring her, cataloguing her for later.
Ariadne runs one hand up his arm, feeling the hard muscle beneath his shirt, suddenly aware of how big Eames is, how huge he seems hovering over her. She’s never been with a man as physically large as Eames before; Arthur is much more her type – dark haired, slender, narrow in the shoulders - but there is something about Eames’s broad chest, the stubble of his beard scratching against her skin, his weight and heat and size that calls to her primitive hind brain, the genetic coding that insists she find a mate who can protect her and their young, who can fight and kill and fuck her senseless.
A surge of lust goes through her.
She pulls away from the kiss, suddenly impatient to be done with the foreplay. “Off,” she says, tugging at his sleeve. “Everyone has too many clothes on.”
Eames smirks. “Impatient?”
Ariadne rolls her eyes at him. “Shut up, Eames, and take off your shirt.”
Eames throws his trickster grin at her and kneels back to work on his buttons. Ariadne sits up to help him, working from the bottom up as Eames works down, and when the shirt and the undershirt are gone, tossed onto the floor somewhere, she discovers that he’s covered in tattoos: a stylized Celtic design along his collarbones, a massive abstract design on one shoulder, a Union Jack above his heart - and more, lots more, others she can’t wait to get a look at.
Ariadne smiles and runs her hands over his shoulders, delighted. She has always had a weakness for tattoos, as far back as high school. Her two most recent boyfriends had a couple, but neither of them had quite as many or wore them quite as well as Eames does. It’s a pleasant surprise, and she’s just that much more eager for him now.
“Have a thing for tattoos, do you?” Eames seems amused. “Arthur, she’s a girl after your own heart.”
“Eames, shut up and let her enjoy them.” Arthur is crawling onto the bed beside her, stripped down to his designer slacks. She admires him as he settles next to her, slender and fit, all sinewy muscle and clean lines; there are no tattoos on him, but she hardly expected any. He is beautiful as he is.
“Quick,” she says, unable to resist, “give me a kiss.” He grins and obliges her with more of those focused kisses. She is vaguely aware of Eames getting off the bed long enough to shuck his pants, and then he is back, looming over her again, trapping her between them.
It doesn’t bother her as much as it did before.
“Arthur,” Eames says, his voice thick. Arthur breaks the kiss and looks up, and Eames wraps a proprietary hand around the back of his neck and pulls him into a kiss.
And it all clicks into place.
She gets it, finally, understands the dark looks and snide comments and the incessant bickering in its correct context. She isn’t sure how she missed it, how she didn’t read the sexual tension behind the bitter antagonism, maybe it was her preoccupation with Cobb’s slow self destruction, but it makes sense now in a disorienting way.
“I didn’t know.” It’s a stupid thing to say, since this was all their idea in the first place, and they were the ones who had extended the invitation to her. But caught between them and watching their kiss, she is embarrassed, like she’s an accidental intruder, an interloper who has stumbled through an unlocked door and doesn’t have sense enough to leave.
Eames says, pulling away from Arthur. “Don’t be absurd.” He crooks a finger through one of the belt loops of Arthur’s slacks and tugs impatiently. “For fuck’s sake, Arthur, take off your trousers and help me get Ariadne out of her clothes.”
Arthur blinks and nods, his eyes dark and unfocused. He gets off the bed and slips them off, leaving them in a puddle on the floor. Eames shifts down the bed to straddle her legs, his hands going for the button of her jeans.
Ariadne can’t help feeling caught in the middle in a whole new way. “I don’t want to interfere-“
“Ariadne, petal, shut up,” Eames mutters, peeling open the zipper. “Arthur and I want to fuck you, and the only thing you’re doing to interfere is all this handwringing.”
Arthur kneels on the bed next to her.
“He’s right, you know,” he says, and catches her mouth with his before she can protest further.
He is gentle with her, taking her shirt one button at a time as he kisses her, sliding it down her shoulders, over her arms, his fingers nimble and light on her skin. Eames is less controlled, kissing and nipping his way down her thighs, his blunt fingernails scraping down her legs as he pulls off her jeans and panties all in one go.
The contrast is delicious, and Ariadne’s hind brain takes over again as the last of her clothes disappear somewhere off the edge of the bed. She forgets her protests as Arthur stretches out beside her, scattering kisses on her jaw and throat and all along her shoulder, loses any and all coherent thought as Eames gives her one last knowing grin before his head dips between her legs and proceeds to set her body on fire.
She gasps and buries her hands in Eames’s hair, panting and moaning, alight with pleasure. Eames’s mouth is amazing, positively magical; she bucks wildly towards the source of pleasure, wanting more, as much as possible. His hands tighten on her hips to keep her still, and Arthur curls his fingers through hers to tug her hands from Eames’s hair, whispering endearments into her skin, following them with fluttering kisses.
Then Eames does something particularly clever with his tongue, and she comes suddenly, jerking away from Arthur, back arching, thighs shaking, her mind whiting out in pleasure. Arthur strokes her hair, whispering encouragement until she comes back to herself, utterly blissed out and lethargic.
“Are you okay?” Arthur asks, stroking her hair back from her face.
She nods and strains towards him for a kiss, wanting the contact and the cuddling; Arthur obliges her, slow and sensual.
“Lovely.” Eames plants a kiss on the inside of her knee. “Arthur, condoms?”
“Suitcase,” Arthur mutters into her mouth.
The bed bounces as Eames climbs off. Arthur’s mouth wanders south, down her throat, across her breasts. Somewhere in the room a zipper is pulled, and then Eames’s voice is moving back towards the bed. “A bloody Boy Scout, is our Arthur. Always prepared.”
“That’s the US Coast Guard,” Arthur says against the flat of her stomach.
“What do I care? I’m English. Here.” Eames has crawled back on the bed, dropping a handful of condoms on the bed by her hip. His grin is wicked, the very epitome of gleeful hedonism. “Shall we see how many we can use up before we run out of steam?”
***
They are relentless with her.
Arthur fucks her with the same focused desperation with which he had kissed her, like this might be his only chance, and he is trying to meld them together with the force of his will; Eames fucks her like he can read her mind, like he can uncover all the secrets of her body, unlocking them one after the other with one thrust and the pressure of his fingers. They pass her back and forth between them, one handing her off to the other, driving her crazy with their different rhythms, muttering dark endearments against her skin, into her mouth, urging each other on with filthy suggestions and strategically placed hands.
It is the single most exemplary sex she has ever had, and by the time they’re done with her, Ariadne is so gloriously fucked out and exhausted, she can’t bear the thought of anymore orgasms.
“Guys,” she mutters against Arthur’s chest where she lies sprawled out, “just so you both know, I’m done for tonight. No more sex, okay?”
Eames, partially collapsed across her back, lets out a long sigh of exhaustion. “Oh, love, no worries on my account.” He has one arm draped across her and Arthur, and Ariadne kind of likes it this time, being trapped between them. “I won’t be ready to go again for hours.”
“Same here.” Arthur curls his hand over hers and pulls it up to brush a kiss across her knuckles. “But it is a good kind of no more sex, right?”
“Yeah,” she says, amused that he’s worried about her enjoyment when they made her come three times, something that had never happened before, not with a partner, at least. “The very best kind. I feel like I won the lottery, actually.”
“Oh, Arthur, she’s flattering us.”
“No, I’m just telling you the truth.”
And maybe it’s the flood of endorphins in her system, but she’s actually thinking that it was more like she not only won the lottery, but also the Pritzker Prize and maybe the Nobel Prize on top of it. She’s hardly a blushing virgin; she’s had her share of boyfriends and casual sex partners, and she has always known sex would get better as she and her partners aged and built up experience. But she feels like she has skipped several years of mediocre sex and a lot of practice and gone right to the end where everyone is fantastic in bed, and there are multiple orgasms and they all end up in a sweaty sated mess with no resentment or dissatisfaction. It was perfect and amazing, hardly anything she ever expected, so much so that it sort of feels like...
A dream.
Adrenaline shoots through her system and her stomach twists. Ariadne starts to panic. “Arthur?”
“Hmm?” He is lazily stroking the back of her wrist with his thumb, contentment practically radiating off of him.
“I need to check my totem.”
She expects reassurances or questions, but Arthur just smooths back her hair from her face and says, “Where is it?”
“In the pocket of my jeans.”
“I’ll get it,” Eames says, heaving himself off of her and crawling to the end of the bed to snatch them off the floor.
She rolls over, off of Arthur, to keep an eye on Eames, suddenly panicky, terrified of losing her one sure symbol of reality. “Don’t touch it.”
“He won’t.” Arthur props himself up one elbow, his mouth turned down with concern. “Eames has some boundaries.”
“Only a few, thankfully,” Eames says, passing her jeans to her.
Ariadne sits up and digs into the front pocket. Her fingers immediately curl around the bishop and relief floods through her at the feel of the hard plastic curves, at the round knob on its crown biting into the palm of her hand. This is real, sex with two people really was that good, and everything is okay.
Ariadne slumps down next to Arthur, the bishop clutched tightly in her hand.
“Better?” Eames says, crawling back into bed. He settles on the other side of her, tugs and pulls the duvet up over them.
She nods. “Yeah. But is it normal for me to check my totem so often?”
“After a day like today? Yes. We lived a week of our life in a dream. I would be worried if you weren’t checking it. I’ve checked mine several times, myself.”
“As have I,” Eames says.
A little knot of anxiety uncurled inside her chest. “Good. I was starting to worry about it a little.”
“It’s just a dreaming hangover,” Eames says, yawning. “A good night’s sleep and reality will seem real again.”
“A hangover that makes you question reality and check your totem three or four times every hour?”
“Something like that,” Arthur replies. “Somnacin wasn’t meant to be used for more than an hour at a time, so when you spend days and days in the dream world-“
“You start to question reality.”
“Yes. But Eames is right. Real sleep will take care of it.”
“Okay.” Ariadne yawns, willing to believe them for the time being. She is exhausted now, and even if this is a dream, she isn’t going to be able to do anything about it unless she gets some sleep. She turns her head to nuzzle Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur rolls onto his side and drapes his arm over her stomach.
Her eyes slide close of their own volition, and she is just about asleep when Eames says thoughtfully, “You know, we wouldn’t have needed the condoms if it were a dream.”
Ariadne snorts in amusement against Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur sighs irritably.
“Eames,” he says, “shut up and go to sleep.”
“Yes, darling.”
Caught between them and not minding a bit, Ariadne lets the post coital bliss and the steady breathing of the men on either side of her lull her to sleep.
This time, there is no decaying cityscape, no endless fall into a whirlwind, just the black oblivion of unconsciousness and her totem clutched in her hand.