WHO: Arthur and Ariadne. WHAT: After a fight earlier this week. WHERE: Their house in Irvine. WHEN: Saturday Night. WARNING: Vague reference to sex in the past.
Arthur was, to put it mildly, bad with emotions.
He was particularly awful with romantic emotions. Real romantic emotions, not the ones where he put on airs to get closer to a mark or something like that. So when it came to having a fight with the one person he cared about more than anything in the world?
He had no idea what to do.
After a few days on John's couch, he'd gotten his own hotel room. He'd been dutifully avoiding contact with almost everyone, John and Tony included, to try and clear his head. All he'd really done was work on the Crowley situation, moving the pieces into place, waiting for his opponent to make the wrong move.
It was the only thing that distracted him from her.
There were nights where he found himself alone, with a bottle of whisky and papers spread out in front of him, picking up his phone to text her and then thinking better of it. She was better off, he told himself, and she'd move on and find someone better. Someone able to give her what she needed. Someone who wasn't a burnt and broken shell of a man who couldn't even get it up half the time because of his damn trust issues.
No, it wasn't until a slightly drunk and very angry Tali'Zorah vas Normandy-Vakarian showed up at his door and absolutely reamed him that he even remotely thought about trying to fix it.
But Tali had been right. It wasn't his decision. It never was.
So he stood in front of her door, a coffee in one hand and some roses in another, shifting from foot to foot and hoping she was home.
The first night, Ariadne had curled around his pillow in the bed, and found she couldn't cry. Crying was distracting, and she didn't want to miss the door opening, didn't want to run the risk of missing him changing his mind.
He had to come back.
But he didn't, and Ariadne adapted the best she could. She was working late, and pointedly avoiding Arthur's building. Not a call, not a text, not an email from him made the message clear, but she still didn't understand what he wanted. The house was his, and most of his things were still there.
She braced herself for the inevitable. Her bags were packed and ready, tucked in the closet like a house sitter that knew the family would be home soon.
Her heart quietly broke, and she waited.
The night the door knock came, in spite of everything, she wasn't ready. For the first damn time, the tears threatened, making her eyes over bright. But lifting her head as best she could, Ariadne walked to the door, checking the keyhole cautiously and feeling cold all over, she opened it.
He didn't know what to say. Arthur knew he should've expected this, expected the sadness on her face and the tears threatening to fall, but he didn't. One more point of proof that he was a piece of shit, that he was awful at relationships, and that she should find someone better.
But he'd promised he'd try, not just for her, but for himself.
"Hey," he said finally, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.
You didn't bring flowers to tell someone to move out. Not typically, anyway. She looked up at him with surprise written bold across her features, confusion warring with hope.
When you hadn't hoped for a while, you forgot just how potent it could be.
"Hey," she said back, equally awkwardly. Arthur was running the show. Maybe he was trying to be polite.
"So..." Suddenly, everything he'd been prepared to say sort of went out the window, and he was left floundering, just staring. He'd almost forgotten what her face looked like, and it was like a punch in the gut.
"I... wanted to... apologize." It was hard to sentence correctly. This was the opposite of the Point Man's element.
She had started to forget too, or at least the parts of him that weren't hard angles and coldness. The part of him that wasn't the spy.
The part of him that she thought she brought out, in a small way. The part of him that was just Arthur.
Ariadne wasn't much better; her only relationship had ended too horribly to dredge up and she hadn't been an adult besides. Teenagers were terrible at these things, right? So why were two adults having such a hard time of it?
But he said he wanted to apologize, and Ariadne couldn't hold it in even though she wanted to.
Two large, fat, irritatingly real tears slid down her cheeks, and she wrapped her arm around her waist, trying to get herself under control. "I'm sorry... I'm just... I thought you were going to ask me to leave.”
He leaned his forehead against the doorframe, squeezing his eyes shut. Seeing her cry... god, he felt like an ass. This was his fault, his stupid intimacy issues... Honestly, she would be better off.
But he'd promised. And he was a man of his word when it came to friends.
"No, don't be." He sighed. "I want you to stay. I just... wish I knew how to go about saying I want to come home."
He was as hurt and broken as she was. Sometimes under the glossy finish, the immaculate clothing, the perfect facade it was easy to forget that Arthur was a man beyond that. Beyond his job, beyond his persona.
Ariadne wondered if he forgot that too.
She took a step out of the doorway, taking his hand in hers and squeezing almost too tightly.
"I forgive you. Do you forgive me? Please come home."
Her voice was soft, but pleading.
"Please just come home."
His fingers squeezed hers almost instinctively, though his eyes stayed closed for a long moment. Debating. What if she decided he wasn't worth it? He wasn't sure he could take that, take the rejection.
But maybe that was why they called it 'falling' and not, you know, something safe, like walking. (That, and walking in love just sounded stupid.)
After a minute or two, his arms wrapped around her, and he found his face buried in her familiar-smelling hair.
"I'm home," he whispered. Ariadne's arms tightened around his waist, her face pressed against his shoulder where she let out a breath she had only vaguely been aware she had been holding.
"Welcome home," she whispered back, as if making some mostly unspoken pact that yes, that's exactly where here was.
Home. Their home.
She stood silently in his arms for a long moment, not daring to move or break the spell of silence and his arms.
But eventually, Ariadne looked up at him.
"I'm so sorry. For pestering you like I did." She had worried she'd never get the chance to really apologize. That she'd ruined everything.
Arthur smiled, just stroking her hair for a minute, letting himself bask in the moment. This was good. This was comfortable. This was what had been worth it, and what would be worth any hurt that might come.
When she looked up at him, he placed a hand against her cheek, frowning. "And I'm sorry I didn't let you make your own decision on whether or not to be with me. It wasn't my choice to make. It was yours."
Ariadne closed her eyes for a second, leaning into his touch. It was a physical need to be touched like that. A matter of trust. Not hers, but his. Arthur didn't exactly let people in easily.
Or at all.
"I never want you to think that I need you to be someone else, Arthur. I chose you. I still choose you." Her voice was still hushed, resonating with emotion.
"You'll all I want."
Arthur gave her a small smile, pressing his lips to her forehead. "I know. I just... I worry that you want an ideal of me, sometimes. I know that's not true, but..." He shrugged.
"Guess I have a hard time believing someone wants me as is, you know?"
Ariadne leaned into that touch, even right now worried that she would somehow say or do the wrong thing and push him away. Again.
Biting her bottom lip, she shrugged a little.
"You don't want an ideal me, do you?"
Arthur frowned, stepping back and looking at her softly.
"Of course not," he murmured. "I want you as you are, always have."
She always had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him. He had a lot of inches on her, but Ariadne found if she used his shoulders for leverage it wasn't so bad. A little stretch, and she pressed a light kiss to his lips, underscoring the point she was about to make.
"So do I. I don't want you to change, to be some ideal beyond what you are here, Arthur. All I want is for you to trust that what we have is what I want."
Ariadne's cheeks flushed slightly. "I love you. This you. The you I know. The you I picked."
It made him smile, leaning down a little to make things easier on her as he pressed an affectionate little kiss back to her lips, then her nose, then her forehead.
"It'll take some getting used to," he admitted softly. "It's not gonna be easy all the time."
Ariadne smiled back, letting her hand rest on the back of his neck, just in the short hairs so perfectly trimmed. "I don't want easy. I want you. Tell me what I can do to make this easier and I'll do it. I know I'm not easy to live with either."
It was her overly energetic sex drive that had pushed him away in the first place, or at least what she thought.
"If I had an answer, I'd tell you." The truth was, he had no idea why. The sex thing was uncomfortable, yes, because it made him feel inadequate every time he had to turn her down, but... he supposed his own insecurities were to blame for that.
Ariadne just would be patient with Arthur on that front. He was worth waiting for.
And if nothing changed, he'd be worth that too.
Tugging him down for another kiss, she nodded. "Okay. But you always can. If you need to. If I ever do anything, if you never..."
She buried her head against his chest.
"Please just don't go again."
His arms tightened around her, closing his eyes again and sighing. "I know. I know. I promise,
I'll try not to... assume things."
He paused for a moment.
"And I'm not going anywhere. I'm sorry."
Her arms tightened around his waist, and for a long moment they stood there, just holding each other.
It was a surprisingly happy moment.
"... have you eaten yet?" That was it. The period at the end of the uncomfortable sentence. She wouldn't bring it up against. Arthur came back to her. Nothing else mattered.
Arthur laughed at the sudden subject change, stepping back after a moment and rubbing the back of his neck.
"No. Have you?"
Ariadne smiled, shrugging sheepishly. "No." She'd barely eaten while he'd been gone.
"But I'd like to make you something if you want?" It was a nesting impulse, and she knew it.