Slow Kicks

A/N: Sorry for the major cliff. But- here you go!

Soundtrack: Lovesick- Emily Osmet

Chapter Ten: Lovesick

Kiss me.

Kiss me.

She can feel Arthur's lips tracing patterns on her cold skin- the smell of the sea-

This isn't a mistake.

I love you.

The funny thing about dreams: you feel them but not yet feel them. You feel the patterns on your skin and also the irregular thumping in your chest- but you know it's not real. Therefore, you don't get as much out of it as liked.

But.

This is better then anything Ariadne's ever felt before- the warmth, the beauty, the utter feel of him- want to curl onto him and kiss him- his eyelids, his cheeks-

His lips ghost over to her temple and place a fluttery kiss there-

-then to her mouth again-

you're not dreaming. not dreaming. this is a dream, but you're not dreaming-

kissing her wrist.

Kissing her now.

She's kissing him now.

Questions press up against her bones- pounding, demanding attention. It's the last thing she wants to do, but she breaks away from Arthur. He looks at her- really looks, right down to her strange, mapped out archetitected mind, and smiles. She smiles back. Breathless. Like when she said, kiss me, and he did. Like she is now. How she was when he kissed her wrist.

"I asked you here because I wanted to talk," she says.

we are never broken.

"About?"

"Tomorrow. And earlier." She takes a deep breath, letting it out and blushing at the same time. "And...this."

"This?"

"Shut up."

She wants to know.

Do you like me? This isn't a mistake?

wait. don't look at me like that.

fuck this, kiss me-

and you're so tainted and i'm so not and i don't know what to do but i know i want you. you want me, don't you? because the way i want you is criminal.

criminal.

He sighs. "I don't know," he says carefully. "I just- I don't-"

In all her life, Ariadne has never seen Arthur stumble for words the way she does all the time. Stumble and find them and try them out, and if they don't fit, drop them and keep looking. But she understands- the pull. Unrational. Criminal.

But she's lovesick.

She can't even explain it. She doesn't want to try. Just be close and talk and understand me because no one else can understand a mind as muddled as hers.

She guesses that will have to do.

"I don't know either," she whispers. For some strange, wicked reason, when she whispers it makes her feel-

-strange-

"I think we should wake up now," she says. "They'll be wondering where we are."

fuck them, is what she's actually thinking, but no. Not the Point Man.

but-

she kisses him right before the dream ends.

A/N: Again, sorry for the short chapters, but life is hectic. Reveiw! Review!