maybe we forgot (all the things we are) [inception]
Title: maybe we forgot (all the things we are)
Fandom: Inception
Summary: He wonders if she knew he was going to leave.
Pairing: Ariadne/Yusuf
Rating: R
Notes: I just...I love them so much. There's some Arthur/Ariadne around here somewhere, sorry. But I adore these two.
"Don't stop," she says. But she's not saying it, really. She's pleading with him and she's kissing him and holding his face in her hands, looking right at him. "Is this what you want?" Yusuf nods. Ariadne nods. "Okay." She nods again. "Okay. Okay." He pushes into her, hips hooked between her thighs, thrusting slow. She smells like sleep and he's exhausted, trying to keep his eyes open, wondering how they got here, why he's here.
She's beautiful and she wants him. Yusuf keeps going, if only for that. And because she feels so good and this feels so good and being here and being with her seems like it's the right place to be. He comes before he can say anything and she gasps, threading her fingers through his hair and pulling as she tightens around him, his name ringing loud and clear through the room.
"Jesus," she moans. "Jesus Christ. Yusuf." And then she laughs, falling back onto her pillows and smiling at him. "I am so fucking tired right now."
"You slept for ten hours."
"Yeah. Right. That." He settles next to her, placing a unsure arm around her waist. She curls against him, hitching the blankets over her chest and kissing him. "Don't go, okay?" Ariadne buries her head in the crook of his neck, between his shoulder. He can feel her smiling against his skin and he can feel her wet lips there, kissing him and whispering - "Stay with me."
When he's shutting the door behind him, before she wakes up, he wonders if she said it that way because she knew he was going to leave. He wonders if she held onto him because she knew that, when she woke up, he'd be gone. There's no place for men like him. Not in her world. Not in any world, really. And there's no word for this feeling.
All he can call it is guilt.
Yusuf never makes it back to Mombasa. Someone's ratted out his den and he has to spend a good chunk of his money making sure he stays out of trouble. He gets the message and books a flight for home - home where his mother is and to his sisters and his childhood. There's a lot there he needs to see, he thinks. Things he needs to be reminded of before he can get back into the business. He needs to remember where he comes from, sometimes.
"There's a girl, isn't there?" his mother asks, setting dinner on the table. Yusuf thinks of Ariadne, her hair knotted and bunched around her neck in the early morning before he left, her breathing even and the smallest of smiles on her face.
"No," he says quietly. "There isn't." His mother raises an eyebrow and then nods to the food.
"Eat."
"He's lying," his older sister says. "What's her name?"
"I told you, there isn't one."
"She's American then?" Yusuf rolls his eyes and remembers why he doesn't come back very often. "Maybe it's a he?"
"Mother. That's enough." She shrugs, taking her seat next to him and reaching out to stroke his hand.
"I just want you to be happy."
He pushes the image he's had in his head for days of her waking up without him there. No note, nothing. It's definitely called guilt, he thinks. He knows this now, as he helps his mother clean the kitchen and then walks the steps up to his old bedroom. There's not much of the boy that used to live there inside him now. That Yusuf left too long ago, when his hands were still shaky with anticipation at the thought of creating something all his own, of being a pioneer in a new and dangerous field.
He wonders if there's an Ariadne that he doesn't know - one before the Fischer job. And when he thinks of her, he thinks of her voice, ragged and pleading, and he thinks of her legs wrapped around him and her teeth at his shoulder and her fingers in his hair. He thinks of the scent of her and the sound of her and the feel of her. He goes to bed that night, thinking of her, and he leaves early in the morning.
This time, he says goodbye.
It only makes sense that he should see her again. Three months after he leaves her, he has to work with her, on a job in Spain. It's hot there, and a dry wind nearly blows him off his feet as he leaves the airport in Madrid. Yusuf doesn't speak Spanish, especially not the tongue heavy Castilian he keeps hearing. He took Italian in high-school and college, just because he couldn't be bothered with anything as useful as Spanish. There's an old apartment they're using as their workplace and Yusuf gets lost six times trying to find it.
When he sees her perched on a battered kitchen counter, talking to a garishly dressed man who won't stop looking at her chest, Yusuf wishes he'd gotten lost a few more times.
But she just smiles and nods, then goes back to her conversation.
"You're Yusuf?" A stout man with a severely straight back strides forward, hand outstretched. "Ariadne said you were the right chemist for the job. I guess we'll see then, yeah?"
"I'll do my best."
"I'm Paul, the extractor on this case. That's Harrison, our pointman. And you know the architect, obviously."
If you only knew, Yusuf thinks. Paul looks at him curiously and he wonders if he said it out loud, but nothing else about her is mentioned, so he asks about job details and sets up his station in the empty living room. Ariadne doesn't look at him the entire time, even though he glances up at her every few moments. He's not sure what he's expecting -
(no, he does. he wasn't expecting her).
but he expects a bit more than this now. Around sunset, she puts her materials away and slings her bag around her shoulder.
"Staying late?"
"Just a bit longer."
"You know," she says, lowering her voice. "If you didn't want it, you just should have said so." Before he can react, she's gone, the space where she was standing still smelling like her, still holding her form. Yusuf looks at his things and wishes he'd gone with her. He can't concentrate anymore, so he begins putting it all away.
"You know the architect." Harrison's voice sounds behind him and Yusuf feels his chest flood with dislike. "She recommended you. She's a keeper," he adds, grinning. "You know much about her? In the way of wooing her?"
"No," Yusuf says sharply, shutting his briefcase and grabbing his jacket. "Goodnight."
He's not wrong to dislike Harrison, but he's probably disliking him for all the wrong reasons. Jealousy was never an emotion he had much time for, mostly because jealous went along with women - another thing he never had time for. But he had had her, Ariadne, in his grasp. And he'd let her go. The feel of her hair in his hands is a ghostly one. He wonders if she's fucking the pointman, but doesn't ask. He hardly talks to her at all.
The job is terrifyingly difficult for her, he knows. Paul is obsessed with detail and forces her to design and redesign at least a hundred times and he knows she's stressed beyond belief. Even Harrison backs off, for a while. She nearly bites his head off one evening as he tries asking her out for drinks. Yusuf can hear him mumbling in frustration on his way out the door. He turns back to watch her work for a moment, thrown off when her head snaps up and she glowers at him.
"Stop looking at me, Yusuf."
"Sorry."
"Yeah. I'll bet." Eventually he hears her give a low, frustrated scream and throw her pen across the room. "Don't," she warns, when he moves to get up. "Just...just don't. Okay? Please." She runs a hand through her hair and sits at one of the old kitchen chairs, staring at the wall next to her. Yusuf tries to ignore her, but she's crying and he just can't.
She doesn't stop him when he kneels in front of her, pressing his hands on her thighs.
"Ariadne." Instinctively, his hand reaches up to brush a tear from her cheek. She leans into his touch, crying harder.
"I'm so tired." And he can see it in her eyes and her body. "Why did you go?"
"I...I don't..."
"Nevermind. Just...I need to go to bed. Will you take me to my room?" He nods and packs up his things, walking her to her hotel. She leans against him the whole way there, not protesting when his arm wraps around her, or when he follows her in. She strips down to her underwear and undershirt, unashamed, and crawls between the sheets. Turning over, she looks at him and sits up. "Come here."
Yusuf approaches the bed cautiously, but she pulls him closer, tugging at his jacket and locking her hands around his neck.
"It's okay," she says, kissing him slowly. "It's really okay." Ariadne reaches down and undoes his belt and Yusuf tries as gracefully as he can to kick off his shoes and pants and crawl into bed with her. "Sleep here. Just sleep." He nods, pulling her close and feeling her body relax in his arms, listening to her breathing slow down.
He's not sure how long either of them are out. Hours pass and Yusuf wakes with a start, aware he's not alone anymore, feeling a warm body next to him. It shifts and he remembers the afternoon before. He grabs the tiny hotel clock and squints: 2:38 AM.
"Go to sleep," Ariadne mutters, grabbing the clock and chucking it across the room. Yusuf slips back down into the blankets, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "You woke me up."
"Sorry."
"S'fine." She turns over and toys with his collar, pressing her nose to his shirt and breathing deep.
He finds himself unable to describe this feeling as Ariadne presses her lips to his, slipping her tongue inside his mouth. Suddenly, he's wide awake and she's warm against his body, soft and smelling like sleep and soap and hotel bed sheets. His fingers ghost against her bare side, chill on her warm skin. She shivers, shifting closer to him, hooking a leg around him and straddling his waist.
"You told them to use me," he says quietly, pressing his palms into her hips, pulling her closer.
"Mmmm...I might have." Yusuf laughs until she leans down and kisses him slow and sweet again, tangling her fingers in his hair and moving down his neck and undoing the buttons of his shirt. His pulse is quickening and he's hard under her palm. "It's okay if you want to just go," she says, grinning.
"You're a monster."
"I do what I can."
When the job is over, Yusuf is relieved. He stands with his bag over his shoulder at the airport, staring at the list of departing flights. There's movement next to him - and there she is, tilting her head and watching the times shift back and forth across the board. Quietly, she takes his hand in hers and continues watching. There's a spark there, a feeling that has a word, but not one that Yusuf can remember right now. He understands that it is less of a word and more of a noise - that tiny sigh when he kisses her; it's more of an action - taking her hand in the airport, squeezing her fingers, never taking his eyes off the numbers in front of him.
Finally, she turns away, looking right at him.
"So. Where do we go from here?"
Fandom: Inception
Summary: He wonders if she knew he was going to leave.
Pairing: Ariadne/Yusuf
Rating: R
Notes: I just...I love them so much. There's some Arthur/Ariadne around here somewhere, sorry. But I adore these two.
"Don't stop," she says. But she's not saying it, really. She's pleading with him and she's kissing him and holding his face in her hands, looking right at him. "Is this what you want?" Yusuf nods. Ariadne nods. "Okay." She nods again. "Okay. Okay." He pushes into her, hips hooked between her thighs, thrusting slow. She smells like sleep and he's exhausted, trying to keep his eyes open, wondering how they got here, why he's here.
She's beautiful and she wants him. Yusuf keeps going, if only for that. And because she feels so good and this feels so good and being here and being with her seems like it's the right place to be. He comes before he can say anything and she gasps, threading her fingers through his hair and pulling as she tightens around him, his name ringing loud and clear through the room.
"Jesus," she moans. "Jesus Christ. Yusuf." And then she laughs, falling back onto her pillows and smiling at him. "I am so fucking tired right now."
"You slept for ten hours."
"Yeah. Right. That." He settles next to her, placing a unsure arm around her waist. She curls against him, hitching the blankets over her chest and kissing him. "Don't go, okay?" Ariadne buries her head in the crook of his neck, between his shoulder. He can feel her smiling against his skin and he can feel her wet lips there, kissing him and whispering - "Stay with me."
When he's shutting the door behind him, before she wakes up, he wonders if she said it that way because she knew he was going to leave. He wonders if she held onto him because she knew that, when she woke up, he'd be gone. There's no place for men like him. Not in her world. Not in any world, really. And there's no word for this feeling.
All he can call it is guilt.
Yusuf never makes it back to Mombasa. Someone's ratted out his den and he has to spend a good chunk of his money making sure he stays out of trouble. He gets the message and books a flight for home - home where his mother is and to his sisters and his childhood. There's a lot there he needs to see, he thinks. Things he needs to be reminded of before he can get back into the business. He needs to remember where he comes from, sometimes.
"There's a girl, isn't there?" his mother asks, setting dinner on the table. Yusuf thinks of Ariadne, her hair knotted and bunched around her neck in the early morning before he left, her breathing even and the smallest of smiles on her face.
"No," he says quietly. "There isn't." His mother raises an eyebrow and then nods to the food.
"Eat."
"He's lying," his older sister says. "What's her name?"
"I told you, there isn't one."
"She's American then?" Yusuf rolls his eyes and remembers why he doesn't come back very often. "Maybe it's a he?"
"Mother. That's enough." She shrugs, taking her seat next to him and reaching out to stroke his hand.
"I just want you to be happy."
He pushes the image he's had in his head for days of her waking up without him there. No note, nothing. It's definitely called guilt, he thinks. He knows this now, as he helps his mother clean the kitchen and then walks the steps up to his old bedroom. There's not much of the boy that used to live there inside him now. That Yusuf left too long ago, when his hands were still shaky with anticipation at the thought of creating something all his own, of being a pioneer in a new and dangerous field.
He wonders if there's an Ariadne that he doesn't know - one before the Fischer job. And when he thinks of her, he thinks of her voice, ragged and pleading, and he thinks of her legs wrapped around him and her teeth at his shoulder and her fingers in his hair. He thinks of the scent of her and the sound of her and the feel of her. He goes to bed that night, thinking of her, and he leaves early in the morning.
This time, he says goodbye.
It only makes sense that he should see her again. Three months after he leaves her, he has to work with her, on a job in Spain. It's hot there, and a dry wind nearly blows him off his feet as he leaves the airport in Madrid. Yusuf doesn't speak Spanish, especially not the tongue heavy Castilian he keeps hearing. He took Italian in high-school and college, just because he couldn't be bothered with anything as useful as Spanish. There's an old apartment they're using as their workplace and Yusuf gets lost six times trying to find it.
When he sees her perched on a battered kitchen counter, talking to a garishly dressed man who won't stop looking at her chest, Yusuf wishes he'd gotten lost a few more times.
But she just smiles and nods, then goes back to her conversation.
"You're Yusuf?" A stout man with a severely straight back strides forward, hand outstretched. "Ariadne said you were the right chemist for the job. I guess we'll see then, yeah?"
"I'll do my best."
"I'm Paul, the extractor on this case. That's Harrison, our pointman. And you know the architect, obviously."
If you only knew, Yusuf thinks. Paul looks at him curiously and he wonders if he said it out loud, but nothing else about her is mentioned, so he asks about job details and sets up his station in the empty living room. Ariadne doesn't look at him the entire time, even though he glances up at her every few moments. He's not sure what he's expecting -
(no, he does. he wasn't expecting her).
but he expects a bit more than this now. Around sunset, she puts her materials away and slings her bag around her shoulder.
"Staying late?"
"Just a bit longer."
"You know," she says, lowering her voice. "If you didn't want it, you just should have said so." Before he can react, she's gone, the space where she was standing still smelling like her, still holding her form. Yusuf looks at his things and wishes he'd gone with her. He can't concentrate anymore, so he begins putting it all away.
"You know the architect." Harrison's voice sounds behind him and Yusuf feels his chest flood with dislike. "She recommended you. She's a keeper," he adds, grinning. "You know much about her? In the way of wooing her?"
"No," Yusuf says sharply, shutting his briefcase and grabbing his jacket. "Goodnight."
He's not wrong to dislike Harrison, but he's probably disliking him for all the wrong reasons. Jealousy was never an emotion he had much time for, mostly because jealous went along with women - another thing he never had time for. But he had had her, Ariadne, in his grasp. And he'd let her go. The feel of her hair in his hands is a ghostly one. He wonders if she's fucking the pointman, but doesn't ask. He hardly talks to her at all.
The job is terrifyingly difficult for her, he knows. Paul is obsessed with detail and forces her to design and redesign at least a hundred times and he knows she's stressed beyond belief. Even Harrison backs off, for a while. She nearly bites his head off one evening as he tries asking her out for drinks. Yusuf can hear him mumbling in frustration on his way out the door. He turns back to watch her work for a moment, thrown off when her head snaps up and she glowers at him.
"Stop looking at me, Yusuf."
"Sorry."
"Yeah. I'll bet." Eventually he hears her give a low, frustrated scream and throw her pen across the room. "Don't," she warns, when he moves to get up. "Just...just don't. Okay? Please." She runs a hand through her hair and sits at one of the old kitchen chairs, staring at the wall next to her. Yusuf tries to ignore her, but she's crying and he just can't.
She doesn't stop him when he kneels in front of her, pressing his hands on her thighs.
"Ariadne." Instinctively, his hand reaches up to brush a tear from her cheek. She leans into his touch, crying harder.
"I'm so tired." And he can see it in her eyes and her body. "Why did you go?"
"I...I don't..."
"Nevermind. Just...I need to go to bed. Will you take me to my room?" He nods and packs up his things, walking her to her hotel. She leans against him the whole way there, not protesting when his arm wraps around her, or when he follows her in. She strips down to her underwear and undershirt, unashamed, and crawls between the sheets. Turning over, she looks at him and sits up. "Come here."
Yusuf approaches the bed cautiously, but she pulls him closer, tugging at his jacket and locking her hands around his neck.
"It's okay," she says, kissing him slowly. "It's really okay." Ariadne reaches down and undoes his belt and Yusuf tries as gracefully as he can to kick off his shoes and pants and crawl into bed with her. "Sleep here. Just sleep." He nods, pulling her close and feeling her body relax in his arms, listening to her breathing slow down.
He's not sure how long either of them are out. Hours pass and Yusuf wakes with a start, aware he's not alone anymore, feeling a warm body next to him. It shifts and he remembers the afternoon before. He grabs the tiny hotel clock and squints: 2:38 AM.
"Go to sleep," Ariadne mutters, grabbing the clock and chucking it across the room. Yusuf slips back down into the blankets, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "You woke me up."
"Sorry."
"S'fine." She turns over and toys with his collar, pressing her nose to his shirt and breathing deep.
He finds himself unable to describe this feeling as Ariadne presses her lips to his, slipping her tongue inside his mouth. Suddenly, he's wide awake and she's warm against his body, soft and smelling like sleep and soap and hotel bed sheets. His fingers ghost against her bare side, chill on her warm skin. She shivers, shifting closer to him, hooking a leg around him and straddling his waist.
"You told them to use me," he says quietly, pressing his palms into her hips, pulling her closer.
"Mmmm...I might have." Yusuf laughs until she leans down and kisses him slow and sweet again, tangling her fingers in his hair and moving down his neck and undoing the buttons of his shirt. His pulse is quickening and he's hard under her palm. "It's okay if you want to just go," she says, grinning.
"You're a monster."
"I do what I can."
When the job is over, Yusuf is relieved. He stands with his bag over his shoulder at the airport, staring at the list of departing flights. There's movement next to him - and there she is, tilting her head and watching the times shift back and forth across the board. Quietly, she takes his hand in hers and continues watching. There's a spark there, a feeling that has a word, but not one that Yusuf can remember right now. He understands that it is less of a word and more of a noise - that tiny sigh when he kisses her; it's more of an action - taking her hand in the airport, squeezing her fingers, never taking his eyes off the numbers in front of him.
Finally, she turns away, looking right at him.
"So. Where do we go from here?"