⋆.ೃ࿔*:･god knows I tried…
•Islam Makhachev x Reader
(Basically your a assistant at aka and Islam loses his mind) I wish I knew what to write here omg no warnings I guess except this is my first time writing so bare with me… I can’t believe I’m actually posting this might log off forever hahahah.
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You didn’t realize you had become a problem until way later…
Because at first you’re just the new assistant at AKA, bright smile, clipboard in hand, hoodie sleeves pushed up as you run towels and bottles back and forth like it’s second nature.
To you, this is just a job, fun and exciting and of course a little tiring like any other job would be as well.
To Islam… it’s something he doesn’t have a name for yet.
He grew up with rules. Real rules. Old ones, mountain-deep ones, the kind that follow a man even across oceans. He knows how to lower his gaze, how to keep distance, how to be respectful, how not to let his eyes linger on any woman who isn’t his wife.
And he is married. He reminds himself every morning. He presses the thought into his chest like a stone he refuses to drop.
But none of that stops whatever this is, this stupid, warm, pulling thing inside him that shows up the second you step into the room.
his mind has no choice but to think of you… and he knows he’s not alone it’s not like he’s stupid your beautiful obviously and very smart and charming many men would find that attractive. But to him this wasn’t just attraction he became obsessed with you and the version he had build in his head since he was to damn scared to meet the real version of you. Others weren’t so scared since they just didn’t care that much for example:
Usman walked past you once while you’re picking up hand wraps from the mats and murmured to Zubaira in Russian, “Она красивая, да?” (She’s pretty, yeah?)
Zubaira smirks, shrugs, “Как кукла.” (Like a doll.) they laugh like teenage idiots after, knowing you wouldn’t understand what they said.
Both of them go quiet real fast when Khabib snaps a look their way, sharp as a slap.
“Be respectful,” he says under his breath. “Don’t act like fools.”
They nod like guilty teenagers, and Islam listened to the whole conversation while keeping his head down because if Khabib had any idea what was going on in his own mind… God. He wouldn’t just scold him. He’d drag him straight back to Dagestan by the ear and never let him leave again.
Because the truth is… Islam noticed you long before anyone else did.
He noticed the first day — the way you smelled like vanilla, but not the cheap kind. More like… walking past a bakery. Sweet, warm, like pies cooling on a counter. And boy does he crave sweets during weight cuts more than anything, and now he craves you in that same low, aching way that sits behind his ribs and won’t leave him alone.
He absolutely hates it, he hates how you make him feel because he’s never had to worry about these stupid things ever before.
He catches himself wondering about the smallest details like your eye color, because he’s only seen it in tiny careful glances, never long enough to really know. Your life — what you do when you go home from the gym? Your family — if they’re strict like his, or if they let you do whatever you want. If you think of him at all like ever?
Is he as fascinating to you as you are to him? Or do you just think he’s some stiff, conservative Russian guy who barely talks and doesn’t know how to act normal around women?
Sometimes he thinks you must. Because every time you walk by, he either looks too fast or not at all. And he hates that he doesn’t know which one is worse.
There’s one day he’s wrapping his wrists before drilling takedowns and he hears you laugh at something DC said in the hallway — this bright, easy California sound he’s never been around in his entire life, and he feels the noise right under his ribs.
Like a bruise. A soft one.
And later that night, when he goes to wash before prayer, he scrubs rougher than usual, water splashing up his arms, trying to wash the feeling off. Trying so desperately to wash you off him and every thought he’s ever had about you.
He whispers his prayer with a tight throat, trying to center himself. Trying to remember who he is, where he’s from, and what he owes the people waiting for him at home. His wife. Her family. His own.
None of this is supposed to be happening.
But then the next day he walks into the training area and you’re there again, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled, smelling like vanilla and clean laundry as you always do. It makes him so angry that he can’t escape you and he wished more than ever before that you just left already so everything could go back to how it was before.
But since he knows that won’t be happening and he also knows that as long as you are around him all the time he won’t forget about you so he might as well know it all.
He wants to know your favorite movie. If you like spicy food. If your parents are proud of you. What you dream about. If you’ve ever looked at him the way he looks at you — quick, guilty, hungry for something he can’t name.
And the worst thought, the one that hits him hardest… is simple:
what if she sees how he looks without really looking… what if she knows what he thinks of her and how much he thinks of her…
Because it’s not just at the gym. It’s not just when he sees you.
It’s when he lies awake after a long training day, staring at the ceiling, feeling your laugh echo somewhere in the back of his head.
It’s when he catches the scent of something sweet on a passerby at the grocery store and has to walk the other direction before he gets angry at himself.
It’s when he closes his eyes during prayer and tries to focus but your face slips in anyway, uninvited and soft and warm and so terribly, disastrously human.
So one day it had to happen it was simply not avoidable anymore.
One afternoon, after sparring, he sees you struggling to carry a box of new gloves, trying to push the door open with your shoulder.
and of course he remembered the whole interacting with women thing but he also remembered what kind of a horrible man he would be if he just left a woman struggling by herself.
So he decides to do what a real gentleman man should do in this situation. He holds the door open. You look up at him — really look — and your eyes catch the light in a way he’s never been lucky enough to see before.
Brown? Hazel? Something in-between? He suddenly wants to know. Badly.
“Thanks,” you grin, a little breathless. “Didn’t realize they ordered so many today.”
He nods, eyes dropping too fast. “Is ok.”
Your laugh comes easy. “you really don’t speak more than two words huh?”
And he feels it again — that bruise under the ribs. Deepening.
“ah whatever, thank you Islam“ you say already having given up the conversation since that’s not really something Islam does like ever, until you hear him clear his throat like he’s finally going to say something.
“you here by bike?“ he says awkwardly looking down at the floor.
“yea I kinda always am, it’s not that far like 25 minutes if I’m going slow. Why?“
“Do you need ride home today? You work so much and you seem tired” he asks before thinking. The words slip out too fast, too raw.
You blink. “Oh. Um… sure, if you don’t mind.”
He minds. He minds in a way that feels like a sin.
But he wants it anyway.
That night in the car, he hears himself talk more than he has in weeks. About home. His mother. His village. The pressure. The expectations. His religion and how proud he is of it — how it keeps him grounded, but also the small quiet ache that lives in him now, ever since you arrived. He even gets brave enough to tell you just how much he admires your freedom and the way you live almost without rules and that sometimes he wonders what he would be doing if he could bend the rules even just a tiny bit.
You listen. You really listen, and it does something to him.
And when you tell him gently, almost whispering, “Maybe you’re allowed to do what feels right… even if it bends a rule or two,”
He feels it like a hand around his heart.
At your apartment, neither of you move right away.
He stares at the steering wheel, then at you, then back down again like he’s fighting with something bigger than both of you.
Finally, he forces the words out, soft and rough:
“I think about you. Sometimes”
His throat works as he swallows.
You don’t speak. You just watch him, waiting.
He looks at you then — really looks — taking in everything he’s never let himself hold onto before. The color of your eyes. The curve of your mouth. The softness he’s been running from.
Quietly, like a confession:
“Maybe you can help me understand… what rules I want to bend”
You look up at him softly and tell him “I can try my best, if you let me…“ in a comforting way.
So comforting that in the warm glow of the dashboard lights painting his face gold, Islam leans in slow, hesitant, trembling like he’s crossing a lifetime of rules in a single breath.
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Guys… is this the cringiest thing to ever be out on the internet? It might omg. Please tell me what you think like complete honesty.
