Here be another Inception fanfiction! This one is just a one-shot with Arthur and Ariadne. It's separate from my If You Can't Sleep, Club universe, so don't mix in the two or anything. There's a fair amount of angst-much to my satisfaction-and it's kinda sad. At least, it was for me when I was writing it last night.

Plot idea came to me two nights ago while I was fantasizing. But anyway, please enjoy and I always love comments/reviews/anything you have to say about it! :D

DISCLAIMER: Dundundun...I don't own anything having to do with Inception. You can thank Christ Nolan for it.

The End

"Do you want to dream with me?"

He closed his eyes, hearing her voice in his head and trying to replay the last memory he had of her. All the while, his pale hand clutched at his ever-reddening chest while the concrete beneath him turned crimson. Precious, liquid life flowed continuously from the wound. The bullet had hit him lethally; Arthur wasn't going to be rescued and he knew it.

With his free hand that lay limply at his side, the Point Man dug around in his pant's pocket, eventually removing a red cube. With the last ounce of strength he could muster, Arthur flicked the translucent dice and watched it skitter across the deserted street. A small crack in the pavement stopped its rolling and turned it onto one side. Arthur's eyes closed tightly, partially due to the pain he was suffering, but also because he realized that he wasn't going to be waking up from this nightmare. This was as real as reality could get. His lids remained shut in agony.

He could feel the warm blood pulsing from his chest and creeping through his fingers. The coppery taste in his mouth only notified him of something he already knew—the bullet had pierced his lung. Red liquid peeked out of the corner of his lips and a sudden ragged cough caused more to gather. The hacking shook his body and Arthur cried out from the sudden wave of fresh pain that washed over him.

The Point Man's once calculative and cunning brown eyes had faded out, as though the life was hastily being removed from them.

"Do you want to dream with me, Arthur?"

Her voice again. Ariadne's. Arthur couldn't stop her from filling up his every thought during these moments. His last moments, he knew. So he just released himself to the memory's hold and watched it play back in his mind.

"Do you want to dream with me, Arthur?"

The Point Man looked up from his desk that was covered in a million different paper files—all happily organized, just like Arthur always was—but still all over the place because of how numerous they were. He gave Ariadne a strange look. "Cobb wants me to finish all of this before—"

"Before he gets back. I know. But that's not for another four hours. So, do you want to dream?" Ariadne grinned and cocked her head slightly with a slight edge of playfulness. Her loose tangle of brunette curls bobbed with the motion and hid her red scarf from view.

How could Arthur resist someone like her? Exactly. He couldn't. He quickly glanced at his laptop, typed a few keys, and put the device to sleep. Smiling tiredly up at Ariadne, he said, "Okay. I'll dream with you."

Ariadne's face lit up and pleased Arthur immediately. After Ariadne put headphones in her ears to signal the upcoming kick since no one was monitoring the PASIV device, they each found a comfortable place to lie down and within moments, the pair was asleep and in Ariadne's dream.

They found themselves at the edge of a tall cliff that was only several feet in length and width but thousands of stories tall, looking out at the entire world. Not figuratively speaking, but literally. Ariadne had worked her dreamscape magic to make all the edges of the landscape curl up and around, giving them a visual of every part of the planet in a relatively condensed version. Every major city could be seen and the rivers and roads that cut through the surface reminded Arthur of something. A maze. The world was a maze before them.

The sky was still visible directly above and Arthur observed a tiny seagull fly beneath the blue expanse and then land in a sideways lake. In terms of gravity, physics and pretty much every other theory for how the world is suppose to work, the whole scene before them was impossible. But in a dream, the mind is a canvas on which you could paint whatever the hell you wanted.

"This is amazing," Arthur finally commented after several minutes of stunned silence.

"No one ever takes the time to see the world."

The Point Man watched Ariadne as she spoke.

"I mean, people look at everything, but they don't see it. Do you understand what I mean? I feel like I'm rambling." She laughed uncomfortably.

"No. I get what you're saying. And you're right. People don't stop to take the chance and actually understand what's happening before them."

Ariadne observed Arthur's calm features. He was really thinking into what she had said. Nodding, she spoke in a quiet voice. "Exactly." Then she turned around to view the world behind them. A hundred more cities and a vast desert were visible as they saw another section of the planet. "Thanks, by the way," Ariadne eventually commented, head down and hands tucked safely away in her coat pockets.

"For what?" asked a surprised Arthur. He didn't take compliments well because they embarrassed him and he certainly didn't do "thank you's" because they seemed too cliché.

"Well, for, I don't know. For being here. Dreaming."

"I couldn't have said no."

Ariadne looked up at her companion. "Why not?"

"Well, because. If I had said no, you would have gone under by yourself and…" He hesitated.

"And what?"

"And nothing." Arthur prayed the subject would drop as he looked out at the world casually to avoid Ariadne's eyes.

"So what if I had gone under by myself? I've done it before." She shrugged because dreaming alone didn't bother her, or at least that's what she wanted Arthur to think.

He said nothing.

"And if I didn't go under with you and I didn't want to be alone, I'd just ask Eames." She knew that would push his buttons.

And it did. Arthur's head swiveled and he looked at Ariadne. "You would sleep with that guy?" Whoops. Poor choice of words.

Ariadne couldn't contain her smirk and the giggle that accompanied it.

Arthur's hands flew from his pockets and up into the air unhappily. "You know that's not what I meant! I mean you would share dreams with him? He's a snickering asshole that takes pleasure in people's misfortune!"

Oh no, thought Ariadne to herself. He's really letting loose now. And he was. Ariadne had never seen Arthur so off his hinges.

"He's reckless and cocky and I think you'd be better off sharing dreams with someone else." The deep breath that Arthur took gave him a chance to think about what he had just said.

Ariadne also thought about his words. She had seen Arthur get angry before and even snap a little at Eames, but never to this extent. And what about the last thing he had said? No longer smirking, Ariadne questioned, "So, who would I be better off sharing dreams with?"

Arthur wanted to turn away from Ariadne's eyes so badly, but he held onto them, staring deeply into the chocolate-colored orbs while they bore into him. When minutes past and neither of them refused to look away, Arthur finally responded. "Someone who will watch out for you, when you dream and when you're awake." He approached Ariadne slowly. It was obvious he had cooled down from his outburst of emotion.

An eternity ticked by as Ariadne watched Arthur come closer. He was less than a couple of feet away. She could hear his steady breaths and feel his body heat against her skin. "Who did you have in mind?" she asked shakily.

The Point Man's lip curved upwards in a barely noticeable smile.

But Ariadne saw it. She knew he was talking about himself. She knew Arthur wanted to be the one to share dreams with her. Standing close to him, she grabbed his arm. Even as the classical music began to thunder around them, signaling the approaching kick, Ariadne and Arthur held onto each other's eyes.

"I don't want you to dream alone, Ariadne," he said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"Then will you dream with me?" she asked before stepping onto her the tips of her toes to reach Arthur's height. Ariadne leaned forward as music flooded her ears and the place around them began to uncurl and look like a planet and the two of them were at the top of the world. Her lips neared his and he bent forward, ready to meet her…

Arthur drew his knees up as a coughing fit rattled his body and sent blood spraying from his lips. He tried to breathe in, but his lungs would not allow the oxygen to enter. It was several moments before precious air was welcome again. The Point Man sighed sorrowfully.

He tried to complete the memory by closing his eyes again, but the pain had become too great to concentrate on anything. But he held onto the final scene of that dream—the last dream he'd had. Ariadne had initiated the kiss and Arthur finished it much to his satisfaction. The first time he had kissed her was in the lobby of the hotel during the inception job. Arthur had played it smooth, pretending that it was nothing more than an attempt to keep away the eyes of the projections. But in reality, he had wanted to kiss her again. That last dream with her was when he finally did.

Arthur savored that moment now and wished he could go back to it. He wished he would always wake up with Ariadne close to him and then he could tell her about his dreams. He would tell her that he had a terrible nightmare in which he was chasing a man from a past job, got separated from Cobb and Eames, and wound up getting a bullet in the chest because he was careless and didn't look around every corner.

Ariadne would soothe him with her voice and tell him it would be alright. She would hold him and remind him that it was just a bad dream.

But it wasn't. Arthur had been careless and he really did fail to glance around the corner of an old, abandoned building. And because of that, he was bleeding to no end on a dark, quiet street on warm autumn afternoon. He did not doubt that Cobb and even Eames were around looking desperately for him, but they wouldn't find him in time. Not with his cell phone having been smashed beneath the black shoe of his enemy, who had spared him a bullet in his head only because he knew Arthur would suffer much more without it.

He went back to his memory of shared dreaming with Ariadne. If only he had realized then that that would be the last time he would dream with her again. A pool of tears formed at the corners of his eyes as he cried silently. He hadn't realized how close he was to his friends until now. Even Eames's familiar face would have been a pleasant sight.

The blood from his chest wound never faltered in its flow and only made the puddle beneath him more massive. His pale face was whiter than any human's should be and his eyes were faded beyond recognition. His breaths were growing shallow and darkness began to creep into the corners of his vision.

Arthur let Ariadne's beautiful, girlish face become his entire focus in his mind.

"Do you want to dream with me?"

"Yes," Arthur responded to Ariadne's melodic voice in his head, too softly to be heard.

His hand on his chest fell to his lap in surrender and a last sighing breath escaped his lips. Arthur's mind fled to the place where he and Ariadne were at the top of the world.

Yes, the title is lame. Sorry, but my mind was drawing a complete blank for it. I hope it was somewhat good for you readers out there. This is my first posted fic that has real angst in it, so yeah. Please comment/review/etc!

Also, I didn't give a whole lot of detail about what had happened and where Arthur was, but I did that purposely. I wanted everyone to focus on him and Ariadne, not other stuff that wasn't really going to matter anymore.