Summary: When exhaustion leads to a dumb fight between you and your boyfriend, Spencer, he shows up for you in ways you did not expect. Feel free to listen to I’m With You by Avril Lavigne while reading this.
Pairing: Spencer Agnew x GN!Reader
Tags: Fluff, light angst, established relationship
Word count: 2.5k
Note: Just something short and sweet for anyone still interested in my writing lol! Good to be back! :3
☆
You loved your boyfriend, Spencer. You loved him more than words could describe. You’ve loved him for the past two years of your relationship. Hell, you probably loved him from the moment your close friend, Angela, set you two up. You loved him in the morning when he was all messy hair and sleepy eyes. You loved him when he was calling you during his break just to hear your voice. You loved him when you were cuddling on the couch together after dinner, watching whatever series you were binging together at the time. You just loved him so much.
You loved him even when you two were fighting.
It didn’t happen often and it was usually resolved just as quickly as it started. Honestly, they were more like simple disagreements than fights. The same could not be said for some of your previous relationships, Spencer knew vaguely that you didn’t consider your time with your exes healthy, but he never wanted to pry into your past too much. You two were creatures of logic, so it was easy to remedy the situation, all you needed was a proper conversation and the entire ordeal was over. After all, whenever people came to either of you for relationship advice, you always told them communication was key.
But sometimes, things aren’t so simple. And sometimes both of you come home from your respective jobs stressed from overtime and with a million things on your minds. He had some strict deadlines mixed with technical issues and last minute urgent schedule revisions, with a healthy dose of corrupted footage to top it all off. At the same time, you happened to be dealing with a new manager breathing down your neck, an issue with the filing system at work that meant you needed to do physical filing all week, half your team calling in sick, and worst of all, the coffee machine broke yesterday.
By the time you got home, you were hangry and so tired you felt like you could collapse at any moment.
You rummaged through your bag for your apartment keys when you almost rammed directly into Spencer in front of the door.
“Oh, hey babe”, you gave him a tired smile he returned before pecking you on the lips.
“Hi honey”, he replied sweetly while unlocking the door, “looks like we’re both home late today.”
You sighed as you walked inside, he was holding the door open like the gentleman he was.
“Yeah”, you kicked your shoes off and dropped your work bag by the door like it weighed a tonne, “what a long day.”
“Tell me about it”, he mirrored your sigh and he also took his shoes off, almost losing his balance and stumbling. He was clearly just as exhausted as you. “What do you want to do about dinner? I’m thinking of ordering either Chinese or Thai, but you get the final call.”
“Spence”, you started, trying not to sound frustrated, “I thought we agreed we would only order in once a week to save money. We already got takeaway yesterday.”
“I know, Y/N”, he seemed to be trying to show the same restraint as you, “but we’re both late today and clearly tired, so I thought it was a better idea than cooking something ourselves.”
“Yes, but”, you entered the kitchen as he trailed behind you, “it’ll be faster if we just cook something, we already have a bunch of ingredients here, they’ll go to waste if we don’t use them soon.”
“I understand that”, he sounded like he was losing his patience, you could feel yourself losing yours too. “But I really don’t have the energy to cook something. Do you?”
You were starting to feel annoyed, you tried to push down the feeling, knowing it was unreasonable, you were just tired.
“No”, you replied, opening up the fridge and crossing your arms as you inspected the groceries inside, “but if you don’t want to help, I’ll do it.”
“Don’t do that, babe”, he groaned, leaning against the kitchen counter and hanging his head down.
“Do what?” You furrowed your brow, bending down to see how many eggs you had left.
“Make me the bad guy”, he responded, lifting his head, “making it out as if I don’t want to help you when you know I would normally, I’m just so tired.”
“Well, so am I”, you tried to keep your voice level.
“Then let’s just order in!”
You sighed even heavier than before.
You two were going in circles. Ironically, logical as you both were, you were also incredibly stubborn. Part of you wanted to concede, give up and let him order some takeaway food. But the other part of you, the fiery argumentative part of you wanted to fight back, prove you were right. It was the side of you that would normally lose out, but the exhaustion was causing a severe lack of judgement and your emotions were too heightened.
“Whatever”, you muttered, shutting the fridge loudly without looking back at him. “I’m not even hungry”, you lied as you left the kitchen, heading to the bathroom to take a much needed hot shower.
You regretted your childish actions almost as soon as the bathroom door clicked shut. You stared at yourself in the mirror for a moment, the dark circles under your eyes and slight downturn of your lips. You looked a mess, felt it too. You were so glad it was Friday and you could sleep in tomorrow. But your gut twisted thinking about that whole interaction with Spencer, you probably could have handled it better, but he could have too. You both had agreed to limit your spending on takeaway food, he was even the one to suggest it.
You shook your head, trying to empty it from the thoughts that were getting too loud, and started undressing to take your shower.
☆
When you emerged from the bathroom later, the apartment was noticeably silent.
You braced yourself, “Spence?” You called out to him. Nothing.
You checked around all the rooms, he was nowhere to be found.
Great, you thought to yourself, you’ve really gone and done it now, he’s probably gone off to stay somewhere else for the night because you threw a tantrum about bloody dinner of all things.
You walked into the kitchen again, placing your hands on the counter where he had just been before you stormed out. It was cold now.
You’d never had an actual argument like that with Spencer, it was so dumb but the feelings felt legitimate. You were doing so well, not letting your temper or bad habits from previous relationships interfere with you and him. Your last couple of exes would have turned the conversation into a screaming match, that was part of why you escaped to the bathroom so quickly, not wanting either of you to start yelling. You knew in your heart that Spencer would never raise his voice at you like they did, but you also thought that about your exes before they went and did exactly that. You’ve never told Spencer about what your past relationships were like, partly because he didn’t pry, partly because you were ashamed.
You cut off the buzz from the old light fixtures by flicking the switch off. You had lost your appetite for real now. Still too proud to contact him, you crawled into bed. The exhaustion made your bones ache and they felt like they were creaking as you relaxed into your soft bedding. You were too tired to think hard about sleeping so early with an empty stomach and without your beloved boyfriend beside you. You were so drained, you didn’t even have time to plan how you were going to try to fix things tomorrow before you dozed off.
☆
You weren’t sure how long you had slept for, but there was bright light flooding into the room between the blinds and you felt reasonably refreshed as you sat up, stretching. You were still a little drowsy, but the absolute exhaustion from last night, hell, from the entire last week, was all gone. You glanced at the bedside table, you had probably slept about fourteen hours.
“Shit”, you mumbled to yourself as you rubbed your eyes, the memories of your little argument with Spencer flooding back. You scrambled to grab your phone from where it was charging on the floor, squinting at the screen to see if there were any notifications from Spencer.
No missed calls. No new text messages besides a few from your friends. Your heart ached in your chest, you could feel the guilt settling on your mind like a weight. You had to reach out to him, say something, make sure he was safe, wherever he was.
You sat back in your empty bed, leaning against the headboard. You glanced down at Spencer’s side of the bed. At some point in the night, you had cocooned yourself in the blankets, so it was bare. You reached out, feeling like you might cry out of frustration at yourself and your big mouth, but before you put your hand down, you heard the sound of metal being banged around, something clattering to the floor and voice faintly swearing. You knew that voice better than any other sound in the world.
You jumped up, practically ripping the bedroom door open as you rushed to the kitchen. You appeared in the doorway, greeted by the sight of Spencer by the counter, hair messy and wearing those green plaid pyjama pants you always thought he looked so cute in.
Hearing you approach he turned to you quickly, holding a dirty mixing bowl with the remnants of batter inside.
“Hi”, he said awkwardly, grimacing, “did I wake you? I dropped the bowl when I was trying to put it in the sink.”
You blinked at him, not sure what to say. He wasn’t mad at you?
“Um, no”, you responded, “I was already awake.”
“That’s good”, he hummed, continuing what he was doing, rinsing out the bowl, “you were sleeping like the dead, so I was afraid to wake you before you were fully rested.”
You stared at him before turning your gaze away.
“Where did you go last night?” Your voice came out so much smaller than you expected, you weren’t sure he even heard you until he stopped his motions.
He dried his hands, turning to you, resting his backside against the counter.
“I know you didn’t want me to order in but”, he crossed his arms, “I went down the street to get some takeaway.”
You leaned against the side of the doorway, attempting to appear nonchalant, like the weird foreign tension between you two wasn’t bothering you.
“I’m sorry, honey”, he said softly, you lifted your eyes from the spot on the floor you had been inspecting. “You’re right, we did agree to cook at home more, and I should have tried to get home earlier so we could do that. I was so tired from work, I just didn’t have it in me to stay awake and cook.”
You just quietly nodded, searching for your own words, your own apology.
“I went and got takeout, but by the time I came back you were asleep”, he continued, shuffling his foot as if to occupy himself, “I’m sorry for eating without you, I left your portion in the fridge. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me sleeping next to you, so I slept on the couch.”
Your heart was aching again, you felt so bad making him feel unwelcome in his own bedroom.
“But that meant I could get up early without waking you and make your favourite breakfast”, he looked at you sheepishly, a shy grin on his face.
You stepped into the kitchen immediately, and as you scanned the kitchen table the scent hit you. The sweet, sweet aroma of fresh pancakes. They were the most gorgeous stack you’d ever seen, drizzled with syrup and a little bit of butter resting on top, a bowl full of berries sat next to it.
All the emotion hit you at once, like a wave you didn’t properly brace for. The stupid, meaningless argument last night, going to sleep without him, waking up without him, worrying you had ruined everything, finding him labouring over pancakes for you after sleeping on the couch. You felt tears prickle in your eyes and you felt your body tremble with a sob you couldn’t hide.
“Baby?” Spencer rushed over to you, gently grabbing your sides, “hey, hey, what’s wrong?”
“I’m so”, you hiccuped as another sob hit you, “sorry, Spence.”
“What? You don’t need to be sorry”, he chuckled, pulling you into a hug, letting you wet the crook of his neck with your tears.
“I argued with you over nothing”, you cried, “and you never yelled at me and you even bought food for me and you slept on the couch and you made me breakfast.”
As your body was racked with guilty sobs, he held you tightly, hand coming up to stroke your back comfortingly. He was quietly shushing you in that gentle, sweet tone he always did whenever you got upset.
“It’s okay, honey,” he whispered, “I’m sorry for fighting with you when you were so exhausted.”
“Any way you look at it”, another hiccup, “I was the problem. Why didn’t you tell me off?”
He pulled away slightly at that so he could see your face. You looked at him through wet lashes, embarrassed to be crying over something like this.
“I would never”, his stare was unwavering, you hardly ever see him so serious, “never, ever, shout at you. Okay? You are not the problem. I’ll never raise my voice at you, I’ll never ‘tell you off’, because I love you. You’re my partner, not my pet.”
You sniffled, you suspected this was how he felt but it was still somewhat shocking to hear him lay it out so plainly in front of you.
“I love you too”, you choked out, voice taut from crying. “I’m not used to fights resolving without screaming.”
You had intended for your comment to lighten the mood, but instead, Spencer pulled you in tight, one hand stroking your hair.
“I hate that”, he murmured, his breath tickling your ear and sending little shivers down your spine, “you don’t deserve that. You’re safe with me.”
You felt the last of your tears stray down your face as you squeezed him back. You weren’t sure if it was because of his tone of voice, or the way you were slightly swaying together in a quiet kitchen on a sunny Saturday morning, but you believed him. His arms felt like home.
“Thank you, honey”, you whispered back, your eyes drifting to the kitchen table. “Shit”, you groaned, “those pancakes look amazing.”
He chuckled as he pulled away, wiping the few wet patches left on your face dry before guiding you to the table.
“Come on”, he breathed, ever gentle, ever sweet, his hand so warm in your own, “eat up before they get cold. If you want more, I’ll make as many as you want”
☆
Note: Sorry for disappearing for so long! Life has been super hectic, so I’ve been too busy to write, but I would love to get back to it. I’ll try to work through the absolutely backlog of requests in my inbox first! Please be patient with me and let me know what you think about my latest work!! Thank youuu <3
♡ Masterlist | Taglist: (send me an ask to join!) @adresstayaa @cloverrwritess @spennininomenon @thewayilikemycookie
