Open Hearts and Closed Minds - Inception - Ariadne/Yusuf
Title: Open Hearts and Closed Minds
Pairing: Ariadne/Yusuf
Word Count: 2913
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Established relationship fic in our Cat-Chemistry 'verse, but it ought to stand alone too. For my lovely weatheredlaw.
Summary: Yusuf is taken away on a job, by employers who don't seem to care about whether or not he wants to come. Ariadne is left to wonder why he left, and why he didn't ask her for help.
Ariadne's sleep fascinates him in a way that stops Yusuf from closing his eyes. The rest of the mind fills his working thoughts; to understand and induce it to a delicate specificity is his stock in trade. It should be work; it should bore him. Yet there is nothing boring about the rhythmical rise and fall of Ariadne's chest, her breathing slow and steady like a whispered lullaby. Her skin is pale in the darkness and he wishes that he could wake her up to bathe in it again - but she is too peaceful to disturb.
Besides, waking her now would probably reward him with nothing more than a glare and a grumble. She should enjoy sleep for what it is while she can, before it becomes a work place and an escape from reality.
He leaves her to her untouched dreams and allowed his mind to wander. His route is cut short when the cell phone on the bedside table begins to buzz, vibrating violently as if it is trying to escape. Yusuf grabs for it as Ariadne begins to stir, and spares only a glance for the unrecognised number on the screen.
"Hello?" he murmurs, slipping out of the warm bed into the harsh embrace of the cool air.
"Yusuf," says the voice like cultured wine. "I hope I didn't wake you. Time zones can be such difficult things."
"It's fine." He rubs his hand across his forehead. "Who is this?"
"I have a job offer for you."
"Ah." Yusuf silently decides to track down and scold whoever has been handing out his private cell phone number. "I'm afraid I'm temporarily on a hiatus. If you'd like to call me back tomorrow I could recommend some other chemists for you."
"When I said 'offer', I may have been imprecise with my wording," the man says. Yusuf falls silent. "You're going to help us. We'll make sure that you are well compensated."
"Thank you for your interest, but as I said - "
"Do you want us to recruit your girlfriend as well?" Hearing that, his blood runs cold. "She isn't as experienced as we're looking for, but we do need an architect."
"Who is this?" Yusuf demands. No name. Stupid.
"An interested party. A car will come by to pick you up tomorrow morning. I would recommend that you come without a fuss. I'd hate to see anything happen to Ariadne, wouldn't you?"
"Don't you dare bring her into this," Yusuf hisses. He holds the phone so tightly that his fingers ache, his ear burns.
"We won't unless you do," he is told. "Play nicely and nothing can go wrong. We'll see you tomorrow."
The line goes dead and there is nothing more that Yusuf can do. He lies down again, his body curling around Ariadne's warmth as he blindly tries to work out what to do: mind spinning, spirit sinking.
*
"You're leaving? Just like that?" Ariadne asks over breakfast, abandoning her eggs. "You said you were taking a break."
"This shouldn't take too long," Yusuf lies. He's used to it; his entire life is a web of secrets and half-truths. 'It didn't seem relevant' and 'it never came up' are his mantras. "I'll be back before you miss me."
"I always miss you," Ariadne says. There is anger in her voice, bright red flares of it, but they're not arguing: they never argue. "Sometimes even when you're here I think I miss you, because you're always leaving soon."
"Ari, if it were up to me..."
"That's the thing. That's the whole thing. It is up to you, and you always act like it's not."
Her anger burns white-hot and there is nothing Yusuf can say to defuse it - nothing he should say. She deserves it; righteous and proud, she deserves all the fury she can stand. He rises and walks around the table, placing his hand on her shoulder. She won't look up, but she places one hand over his own, tangling their fingers.
"You'd better be careful," she warns, like a smoldering threat. "I'll hunt you down if anything bad happens to you."
"I'm counting on it," Yusuf says, while hoping that he won't need to be rescued. He has already got in touch with Eames to explain the situation - just in case. "I'd better make sure I've packed everything."
It is very difficult to know what to bring with you when you are being willingly kidnapped. Yusuf packs light, and brings his work kit with him too. Traces of himself remain in all corners of Ariadne's bedroom, and one of their cats has curled comfortably in the spot where they had been sleeping that evening. It stares at him as he gets ready, unblinking and accusatory.
*
Saying goodbye to Ariadne had been an uncomfortable affair, and he finds himself dwelling upon it during the journey. It is better than thinking about his surroundings. The car has tinted windows and leather seats, but the spacious area is dwarfed by the bulky bodyguards who are stationed on either side of Yusuf. They hardly talk, and Yusuf tries not to be unnerved.
From car to plane to car again, Yusuf falls sleep and loses track of time. He knows that their final destination is much hotter than Paris; it makes him wonder if they might be in Africa once more. Mombasa, perhaps, his own backyard. Air condition blasts any thoughts of escape from his mind, as he is brought to the office of the man from the telephone. "You'll have to excuse our uncivilised methods of getting you here. We're on a tight deadline and have little time for negotiation." His office is large, with tall floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into a hot city.
"What do you want?"
"We require compounds to produce very specific results. Have you heard of the commercial side of the industry? It's ready for a boom."
"Please, sir - tell me what you need and I'll tell you if I can do it. I don't need the sales pitch."
The man's face twitches with a quick clench of his jaw. "Inception. You're familiar with it?"
Yusuf nods tightly. The industry-wide fame that comes from being involved in such a spectacularly ground-breaking job tends to result in being asked about it a lot.
"We plan on echoing the job that you performed last year. We'll require similar compounds, with some adjustments."
"You could merely have ordered them over the telephone. This entire charade is unnecessary."
"We intend to perform four levels of dreaming. Considering the risks, we want you to work under supervision in our own labs."
Four levels. They are all going to slip into comas and die; after hearing them threaten Ariadne, Yusuf can't say that the world will suffer a great loss. It's dangerous, and he doesn't care. It is their lives at risk, not his own.
"Very well. Once I've performed my task, I presume I'll be free to go?"
The man smiles, and it occurs to Yusuf that he doesn't even know his name. If he was interested in getting the police involved, now would be the time - but when it comes to the law, Yusuf's experiences have been on the wrong side of the cuffs. He'd rather keep his head down.
"We'll drop you off exactly where we found you. It will be as if none of this ever happened."
When his brief is done, he is led to the highly equipped laboratory on the fourth floor of the building. This is no strung-together operation: there is an entire industry going on here, and equipment that Yusuf has been dying to try out. If it weren't for the heavily armed guards at the door, he might have been able to forget that he is here against his will. The laboratory is a gleaming white playground.
Holding onto the thought of the guards and Ariadne, carefully nursing his resentment, Yusuf gets to work: the sooner that he solves this, the sooner he will be home.
(he doesn't stop to wonder when Paris became 'home'; Ariadne is there, and their cats and her warm, comfortable bed.)
*
He manages to send some emails three days into his work, under the guise of ordering essential chemicals; one to Ariadne, moaning about the weather and promising to come back soon, and one to Eames, with as many details about his location as he can work out and his I.P. address in the hope that that might help.
By the afternoon, he has more bruises than he cares to count, and a split lip that stings whenever he tries to speak. His computing privileges are revoked, and he is locked in his luxurious lab, feeling ridiculously like a princess in a fairytale.
*
He is on on the brink of breakthrough five days later, although his numerous test subjects might object to the exact path that he has taken to get there. The ones who woke up early are the lucky ones. There are brave volunteers whose eyes stay closed long after the compound has worn away, floating in limbo.
Yusuf sits at the bench and watches blue liquid drip slowly into his solution. This one has to work. He is running on a couple of hours of sleep per night and he is running out of ideas - if he can't get the balance right this time, then he is willing to declare the entire venture impossible. He doesn't know quite how well his employers will take that news, but he doesn't imagine that their reaction will be elegant.
Losing all hope, it therefore comes as something of a surprise when Eames saunters through the door wearing a white lab coat and clutching a clipboard. He has an official badge clipped to his front pocket, and he looks for all the world as if he belongs her.
The stethoscope around his neck, Yusuf would say, is a bit much. Eames has always been fond of props.
His face lights up at the sight of his friend and he abandons his experiment, getting to his feet and rushing to the front of the lab. "Eames!"
Their hug is short and abbreviated, complemented by a pat on the back that nearly knocks all of the air from Yusuf's chest. "It's good to see you, my friend," he says, unable to keep the smile from his face.
"I'd save the relief until we're out of here. It's not going to be easy."
Heavy security and bolted doors: Yusuf is stunned enough with Eames's ability to get in, never mind out. Eames presses a gun into his hands, small and simple but enough to make Yusuf feel ill. His contribution to brawls rarely exceeds throwing the odd lamp. "Hopefully you won't have to use it," Eames assures him, but it sounds like an empty promise.
They slip out together, Yusuf's head bowed and Eames's hand on his shoulder as they steer past the guards with a flash of Eames's fake badge. It is a struggle not to start laughing even as his heart thumps and thumps.
Past the guards and down the corridors, they scurry in silence; they are lucky to have had such extensive experience with mazes. Anyone who has spent even in a minute in one of Ariadne's glorious creations cannot find a faceless corporate trap to be an issue. After they've made it down several sets of stairs, taken two lefts and entered the wrong room twice, they plunge into the main hallway. Through a polite throng of people, Yusuf can see a set of glass doors. He can feel a breeze, which means freedom, which means that they are so close to making it.
Which means that, really, it comes as no great surprise to find themselves swamped by frowning security guards, all of them glaring firmly in their direction. Their luck is never this good.
His nameless employer emerges from the elevator, perfectly pressed in his tailored suit. The milling crowd of bystanders fade away, slipping into offices and down corridors as soon as a gun comes into sight, held with experience in the hands of the private security. "Yusuf," his boss says. "I don't believe that you are scheduled to leave yet."
Yusuf feels his heart racing, but Eames keeps his hand on his shoulder. "My friend on the outside has instructions to contact the local police if we haven't returned in twenty-four hours. I don't think you want them crawling through this place."
"If they take us, they'll get you too. I believe there are several arrest warrants on your head, Mr Eames."
"Better a prison than a bullet, you'd agree." Eames smiles, like a wolf baring its teeth. Yusuf sincerely hopes that he knows what he's doing. "Let us walk out of here and everyone goes home happy. Knowing Yusuf, he's probably already done most of the work. All you'll have to do is get someone else in to tweak it a little. Easy."
His employer's jaw clenches. He looks very much as if he wants to order his guards to shoot them and deal with the consequences. Bad business decision, but Yusuf imagines that it would be highly satisfying for him.
"You are lucky to have such dedicated friends," his employer tells him, his dark eyes like hostile slabs of coal. "I can only hope that the next time we meet it will not be in such dire circumstances."
Yusuf's mouth twitches, but he can't bring himself to smile politely. "It's been a pleasure working with you," he says, and it is such an obvious lie that it makes this strange man smile in ice-cold glee.
Eames is quick to get him out of there after that.
It isn't until they are on the plane, however, that Yusuf allows himself to believe that they truly have escaped.
*
The second he walks through the door of Ariadne's apartment, she shoves at his chest, pushes at him in frustration until her hands stop to clutch to his shirt instead. "You are such an idiot," she hisses at him, before she drops her head to rest against his shoulder.
Bemused, his arms take a few moments to wind their way around her, comforted by her warmth. Behind him, Eames clears his throat and then slips past the pair of them to find a drink in Ariadne's kitchen.
"Don't ever think of keeping something like this from me again," Ariadne says when he relaxes his hold on her. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? And I had to find out about it from Eames?"
"Sorry, mate," Eames says, a set of glasses in hand as he prepares to pour drinks for them. "I wasn't going to be the one to keep her in the dark."
Charming and loyal. Yusuf keeps his face as impassive as he can, with questionable success. "They threatened you. I was trying to protect you."
"I'm not a kid - I'm your girlfriend. That's supposed to mean something, y'know."
"I'm back in one piece. Why does this matter now?"
Ariadne huffs air at him like an exhaling dragon, before she shakes her head in disbelief. A hand rests on her hip, and she leaves the room without another word. She doesn't slam the door behind herself - that's worse, in a way.
Looking to Eames for support, Yusuf doesn't find quite what he had been looking for. His face is a guarded safe.
"What did I do?" Yusuf complains, but he isn't stupid. He knows his sins when they slap him in the face.
That doesn't mean, however, that he knows how to apologise for them.
They avoid each other like planets orbiting the same sun for the rest of the day, but Yusuf doesn't have the will-power to stay away from her - not any more, not after what he's just been through. When night falls and Eames is snoozing on the couch, Yusuf cracks open the door to Ari's bedroom. Her bedside lamp is on and she is glaring at a book in her lap as if it has personally offended her.
"Can I say that I'm sorry?" Yusuf asks. He doesn't want to apologise for being kidnapped, but he is smart enough to know that this isn't the true issue.
She doesn't close her book, but she looks up at him. "I had a right to know," she says. "Hell, I had a right to be worried, even if that was all I could do. It's like you don't get that."
As an abstract theory, of course he does. If roles had been reversed, he would have wanted to know; he would have wanted to save her. Yet it has been a long time since he last had to be this honest with anybody. Ariadne expects more of him than anyone before; she makes him want to meet her standards.
With a sigh and a sad smile that he can't interpret, she peels back the covers on his side of the bed. "Get in. The bed's been cold without you."
It feels so soothing to slide into bed with her that he almost moans from the simple skin of the sheets against his legs. Ariadne shifts to lean against him,b but she keeps on reading, allowing his arm to wrap around his shoulders. He nuzzles his lips against the top of her head and allows his body to sink into the warmth: the high-tech laboratory seems a thousand miles away, now. His thoughts hush and his breath evens out as he closes his eyes and sinks into an unsteady bliss.
Pairing: Ariadne/Yusuf
Word Count: 2913
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Established relationship fic in our Cat-Chemistry 'verse, but it ought to stand alone too. For my lovely weatheredlaw.
Summary: Yusuf is taken away on a job, by employers who don't seem to care about whether or not he wants to come. Ariadne is left to wonder why he left, and why he didn't ask her for help.
Ariadne's sleep fascinates him in a way that stops Yusuf from closing his eyes. The rest of the mind fills his working thoughts; to understand and induce it to a delicate specificity is his stock in trade. It should be work; it should bore him. Yet there is nothing boring about the rhythmical rise and fall of Ariadne's chest, her breathing slow and steady like a whispered lullaby. Her skin is pale in the darkness and he wishes that he could wake her up to bathe in it again - but she is too peaceful to disturb.
Besides, waking her now would probably reward him with nothing more than a glare and a grumble. She should enjoy sleep for what it is while she can, before it becomes a work place and an escape from reality.
He leaves her to her untouched dreams and allowed his mind to wander. His route is cut short when the cell phone on the bedside table begins to buzz, vibrating violently as if it is trying to escape. Yusuf grabs for it as Ariadne begins to stir, and spares only a glance for the unrecognised number on the screen.
"Hello?" he murmurs, slipping out of the warm bed into the harsh embrace of the cool air.
"Yusuf," says the voice like cultured wine. "I hope I didn't wake you. Time zones can be such difficult things."
"It's fine." He rubs his hand across his forehead. "Who is this?"
"I have a job offer for you."
"Ah." Yusuf silently decides to track down and scold whoever has been handing out his private cell phone number. "I'm afraid I'm temporarily on a hiatus. If you'd like to call me back tomorrow I could recommend some other chemists for you."
"When I said 'offer', I may have been imprecise with my wording," the man says. Yusuf falls silent. "You're going to help us. We'll make sure that you are well compensated."
"Thank you for your interest, but as I said - "
"Do you want us to recruit your girlfriend as well?" Hearing that, his blood runs cold. "She isn't as experienced as we're looking for, but we do need an architect."
"Who is this?" Yusuf demands. No name. Stupid.
"An interested party. A car will come by to pick you up tomorrow morning. I would recommend that you come without a fuss. I'd hate to see anything happen to Ariadne, wouldn't you?"
"Don't you dare bring her into this," Yusuf hisses. He holds the phone so tightly that his fingers ache, his ear burns.
"We won't unless you do," he is told. "Play nicely and nothing can go wrong. We'll see you tomorrow."
The line goes dead and there is nothing more that Yusuf can do. He lies down again, his body curling around Ariadne's warmth as he blindly tries to work out what to do: mind spinning, spirit sinking.
*
"You're leaving? Just like that?" Ariadne asks over breakfast, abandoning her eggs. "You said you were taking a break."
"This shouldn't take too long," Yusuf lies. He's used to it; his entire life is a web of secrets and half-truths. 'It didn't seem relevant' and 'it never came up' are his mantras. "I'll be back before you miss me."
"I always miss you," Ariadne says. There is anger in her voice, bright red flares of it, but they're not arguing: they never argue. "Sometimes even when you're here I think I miss you, because you're always leaving soon."
"Ari, if it were up to me..."
"That's the thing. That's the whole thing. It is up to you, and you always act like it's not."
Her anger burns white-hot and there is nothing Yusuf can say to defuse it - nothing he should say. She deserves it; righteous and proud, she deserves all the fury she can stand. He rises and walks around the table, placing his hand on her shoulder. She won't look up, but she places one hand over his own, tangling their fingers.
"You'd better be careful," she warns, like a smoldering threat. "I'll hunt you down if anything bad happens to you."
"I'm counting on it," Yusuf says, while hoping that he won't need to be rescued. He has already got in touch with Eames to explain the situation - just in case. "I'd better make sure I've packed everything."
It is very difficult to know what to bring with you when you are being willingly kidnapped. Yusuf packs light, and brings his work kit with him too. Traces of himself remain in all corners of Ariadne's bedroom, and one of their cats has curled comfortably in the spot where they had been sleeping that evening. It stares at him as he gets ready, unblinking and accusatory.
*
Saying goodbye to Ariadne had been an uncomfortable affair, and he finds himself dwelling upon it during the journey. It is better than thinking about his surroundings. The car has tinted windows and leather seats, but the spacious area is dwarfed by the bulky bodyguards who are stationed on either side of Yusuf. They hardly talk, and Yusuf tries not to be unnerved.
From car to plane to car again, Yusuf falls sleep and loses track of time. He knows that their final destination is much hotter than Paris; it makes him wonder if they might be in Africa once more. Mombasa, perhaps, his own backyard. Air condition blasts any thoughts of escape from his mind, as he is brought to the office of the man from the telephone. "You'll have to excuse our uncivilised methods of getting you here. We're on a tight deadline and have little time for negotiation." His office is large, with tall floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into a hot city.
"What do you want?"
"We require compounds to produce very specific results. Have you heard of the commercial side of the industry? It's ready for a boom."
"Please, sir - tell me what you need and I'll tell you if I can do it. I don't need the sales pitch."
The man's face twitches with a quick clench of his jaw. "Inception. You're familiar with it?"
Yusuf nods tightly. The industry-wide fame that comes from being involved in such a spectacularly ground-breaking job tends to result in being asked about it a lot.
"We plan on echoing the job that you performed last year. We'll require similar compounds, with some adjustments."
"You could merely have ordered them over the telephone. This entire charade is unnecessary."
"We intend to perform four levels of dreaming. Considering the risks, we want you to work under supervision in our own labs."
Four levels. They are all going to slip into comas and die; after hearing them threaten Ariadne, Yusuf can't say that the world will suffer a great loss. It's dangerous, and he doesn't care. It is their lives at risk, not his own.
"Very well. Once I've performed my task, I presume I'll be free to go?"
The man smiles, and it occurs to Yusuf that he doesn't even know his name. If he was interested in getting the police involved, now would be the time - but when it comes to the law, Yusuf's experiences have been on the wrong side of the cuffs. He'd rather keep his head down.
"We'll drop you off exactly where we found you. It will be as if none of this ever happened."
When his brief is done, he is led to the highly equipped laboratory on the fourth floor of the building. This is no strung-together operation: there is an entire industry going on here, and equipment that Yusuf has been dying to try out. If it weren't for the heavily armed guards at the door, he might have been able to forget that he is here against his will. The laboratory is a gleaming white playground.
Holding onto the thought of the guards and Ariadne, carefully nursing his resentment, Yusuf gets to work: the sooner that he solves this, the sooner he will be home.
(he doesn't stop to wonder when Paris became 'home'; Ariadne is there, and their cats and her warm, comfortable bed.)
*
He manages to send some emails three days into his work, under the guise of ordering essential chemicals; one to Ariadne, moaning about the weather and promising to come back soon, and one to Eames, with as many details about his location as he can work out and his I.P. address in the hope that that might help.
By the afternoon, he has more bruises than he cares to count, and a split lip that stings whenever he tries to speak. His computing privileges are revoked, and he is locked in his luxurious lab, feeling ridiculously like a princess in a fairytale.
*
He is on on the brink of breakthrough five days later, although his numerous test subjects might object to the exact path that he has taken to get there. The ones who woke up early are the lucky ones. There are brave volunteers whose eyes stay closed long after the compound has worn away, floating in limbo.
Yusuf sits at the bench and watches blue liquid drip slowly into his solution. This one has to work. He is running on a couple of hours of sleep per night and he is running out of ideas - if he can't get the balance right this time, then he is willing to declare the entire venture impossible. He doesn't know quite how well his employers will take that news, but he doesn't imagine that their reaction will be elegant.
Losing all hope, it therefore comes as something of a surprise when Eames saunters through the door wearing a white lab coat and clutching a clipboard. He has an official badge clipped to his front pocket, and he looks for all the world as if he belongs her.
The stethoscope around his neck, Yusuf would say, is a bit much. Eames has always been fond of props.
His face lights up at the sight of his friend and he abandons his experiment, getting to his feet and rushing to the front of the lab. "Eames!"
Their hug is short and abbreviated, complemented by a pat on the back that nearly knocks all of the air from Yusuf's chest. "It's good to see you, my friend," he says, unable to keep the smile from his face.
"I'd save the relief until we're out of here. It's not going to be easy."
Heavy security and bolted doors: Yusuf is stunned enough with Eames's ability to get in, never mind out. Eames presses a gun into his hands, small and simple but enough to make Yusuf feel ill. His contribution to brawls rarely exceeds throwing the odd lamp. "Hopefully you won't have to use it," Eames assures him, but it sounds like an empty promise.
They slip out together, Yusuf's head bowed and Eames's hand on his shoulder as they steer past the guards with a flash of Eames's fake badge. It is a struggle not to start laughing even as his heart thumps and thumps.
Past the guards and down the corridors, they scurry in silence; they are lucky to have had such extensive experience with mazes. Anyone who has spent even in a minute in one of Ariadne's glorious creations cannot find a faceless corporate trap to be an issue. After they've made it down several sets of stairs, taken two lefts and entered the wrong room twice, they plunge into the main hallway. Through a polite throng of people, Yusuf can see a set of glass doors. He can feel a breeze, which means freedom, which means that they are so close to making it.
Which means that, really, it comes as no great surprise to find themselves swamped by frowning security guards, all of them glaring firmly in their direction. Their luck is never this good.
His nameless employer emerges from the elevator, perfectly pressed in his tailored suit. The milling crowd of bystanders fade away, slipping into offices and down corridors as soon as a gun comes into sight, held with experience in the hands of the private security. "Yusuf," his boss says. "I don't believe that you are scheduled to leave yet."
Yusuf feels his heart racing, but Eames keeps his hand on his shoulder. "My friend on the outside has instructions to contact the local police if we haven't returned in twenty-four hours. I don't think you want them crawling through this place."
"If they take us, they'll get you too. I believe there are several arrest warrants on your head, Mr Eames."
"Better a prison than a bullet, you'd agree." Eames smiles, like a wolf baring its teeth. Yusuf sincerely hopes that he knows what he's doing. "Let us walk out of here and everyone goes home happy. Knowing Yusuf, he's probably already done most of the work. All you'll have to do is get someone else in to tweak it a little. Easy."
His employer's jaw clenches. He looks very much as if he wants to order his guards to shoot them and deal with the consequences. Bad business decision, but Yusuf imagines that it would be highly satisfying for him.
"You are lucky to have such dedicated friends," his employer tells him, his dark eyes like hostile slabs of coal. "I can only hope that the next time we meet it will not be in such dire circumstances."
Yusuf's mouth twitches, but he can't bring himself to smile politely. "It's been a pleasure working with you," he says, and it is such an obvious lie that it makes this strange man smile in ice-cold glee.
Eames is quick to get him out of there after that.
It isn't until they are on the plane, however, that Yusuf allows himself to believe that they truly have escaped.
*
The second he walks through the door of Ariadne's apartment, she shoves at his chest, pushes at him in frustration until her hands stop to clutch to his shirt instead. "You are such an idiot," she hisses at him, before she drops her head to rest against his shoulder.
Bemused, his arms take a few moments to wind their way around her, comforted by her warmth. Behind him, Eames clears his throat and then slips past the pair of them to find a drink in Ariadne's kitchen.
"Don't ever think of keeping something like this from me again," Ariadne says when he relaxes his hold on her. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? And I had to find out about it from Eames?"
"Sorry, mate," Eames says, a set of glasses in hand as he prepares to pour drinks for them. "I wasn't going to be the one to keep her in the dark."
Charming and loyal. Yusuf keeps his face as impassive as he can, with questionable success. "They threatened you. I was trying to protect you."
"I'm not a kid - I'm your girlfriend. That's supposed to mean something, y'know."
"I'm back in one piece. Why does this matter now?"
Ariadne huffs air at him like an exhaling dragon, before she shakes her head in disbelief. A hand rests on her hip, and she leaves the room without another word. She doesn't slam the door behind herself - that's worse, in a way.
Looking to Eames for support, Yusuf doesn't find quite what he had been looking for. His face is a guarded safe.
"What did I do?" Yusuf complains, but he isn't stupid. He knows his sins when they slap him in the face.
That doesn't mean, however, that he knows how to apologise for them.
They avoid each other like planets orbiting the same sun for the rest of the day, but Yusuf doesn't have the will-power to stay away from her - not any more, not after what he's just been through. When night falls and Eames is snoozing on the couch, Yusuf cracks open the door to Ari's bedroom. Her bedside lamp is on and she is glaring at a book in her lap as if it has personally offended her.
"Can I say that I'm sorry?" Yusuf asks. He doesn't want to apologise for being kidnapped, but he is smart enough to know that this isn't the true issue.
She doesn't close her book, but she looks up at him. "I had a right to know," she says. "Hell, I had a right to be worried, even if that was all I could do. It's like you don't get that."
As an abstract theory, of course he does. If roles had been reversed, he would have wanted to know; he would have wanted to save her. Yet it has been a long time since he last had to be this honest with anybody. Ariadne expects more of him than anyone before; she makes him want to meet her standards.
With a sigh and a sad smile that he can't interpret, she peels back the covers on his side of the bed. "Get in. The bed's been cold without you."
It feels so soothing to slide into bed with her that he almost moans from the simple skin of the sheets against his legs. Ariadne shifts to lean against him,b but she keeps on reading, allowing his arm to wrap around his shoulders. He nuzzles his lips against the top of her head and allows his body to sink into the warmth: the high-tech laboratory seems a thousand miles away, now. His thoughts hush and his breath evens out as he closes his eyes and sinks into an unsteady bliss.