Peanut Butter Nick Jakoby x Short Reader
The first of my requests is here! For @kittyxrenny-blog Hope you enjoy it!
Warnings - no smut, language, violence, peanut butter death
This was not one of your proudest moments.
Maybe if grocery stores took their customers into consideration instead of stacking their product higher and higher like a freaking metropolitan skyline, you wouldn’t have to lower yourself to such pathetic measures.
Or, in this unfortunate case, raise yourself.
It was your weekly case of ‘how many shelves do you have to climb in order to get your basic necessities?’ Because Heaven forbid anything you like be on the bottom shelves. Those were reserved for off-brand bulk, and if you really needed that many cheese balls in your life, reaching the top shelf was the least of your worries.
The record for shelf climbing was ten. You were sitting pretty at five, but this latest one was proving to be quite an undertaking.
Your local grocery store has one last jar of your favorite peanut butter, located on the top shelf, of course, and in your attempts to climb the shelves to it, your hand knocked the prize further away, just out of reach. So, here you are, standing on one shelf while hanging on to another, wondering how much weight these things can take before you knock down the entire condiments section.
But that little amount of pride you have that dictates short people can do things too won’t let you get down and ask for help.
So, you reach a little farther.
You swear your middle finger brushes something when someone clears their throat behind you.
Half expecting one of the employees, you’re pleasantly surprised to see an orc standing next to you. He’s still taller than you, of course, because life won’t let you see eye to eye with anyone, even with vertical assistance.
He’s not dressed like most orcs you know. Baggy clothing is usually the attire of choice, but this orc is in just a black tee and jeans. It outlines a toned physique that you honestly can’t help but appreciate.
“Um…hi,” you say, trying your utmost to not sound embarrassed at being caught in the act.
You really don’t think it works.
The orc eyeballs the shelf above you momentarily, before setting his gaze back on you. “Do you need some help?”
In one last, desperate push, you reach again.
And manage to push the jar even further away.
You sigh and hang your head, unable to look him in the eye. “Yeah, maybe.”
He reaches up above you. Moments later, his hand produces that very jar you have been trying to reach for the past five minutes.
You almost don’t want the damn thing anymore.
“So,” he starts, looking the jar over. “Do you hang out around here often?”
Slowly, you climb down from the shelves, trying very hard not to roll your eyes. “You know, I was about to call you my hero, and then you had to go and ruin the moment.”
He frowns. “Sorry. I get told my humor needs work sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?” you ask, a smile on your face. You take the peanut butter from him, ignoring the way your fingers brush his. “Name’s (Y/N). You got one, tall stuff?”
He blinks; he probably doesn’t get called that much. For an orc, he isn’t terribly large. Doesn’t matter to you, though. Everyone’s tall in your book.
“It’s Nick. Nick Jakoby.”
“Well, it’s been a pleasure, Nick,” you say, starting to walk down the aisle again.
“Same,” he calls out.
You make it maybe five feet before you turn around, finding yourself unable to walk away from Nick. Maybe it’s his sweet disposition, or that slightly disappointed look in his eyes when you decided to leave. “You know, I happen to like a lot of stuff on the top shelves around here. If you don’t mind, I could probably use some help along the way.”
Nick grins, and honestly it’s the first time you notice his teeth are filed down. “Well, far be it from me to refuse a citizen in need.”
Grocery shopping takes you half an hour, tops. Today, it takes nearly two hours as the two of you wander the aisles aimlessly, picking random boxes when your focus finally manages to stray from the conversation. He’s a cop with the LAPD, an impressive feat that you make known to him rather vocally, but he shrugs off your praise, slightly sheepish under the spotlight. A lot of people are cops. He shouldn’t be any different.
Given most guys you knew would do anything for a compliment, you find his resistance to it appealing.
You talk about your job in retail. It’s not the best thing in the world and most days you’d rather burn the place to the ground, but it pays the bills. You’ll do something else one day, you tell him, once you figure out what.
“I always wanted to be a cop,” he says as you’re checking out. His stuff is behind yours in line, all organic, healthy. You wish you had that kind of commitment. “Ever since I was a kid.”
“Must be nice, always knowing what you want to be.”
“I don’t know about that,” he shrugs. “If this didn’t work out, I’m not sure where I’d be. You’ve got options. The whole world is open to you.”
You never thought about it that way.
The two of you are still chatting when you enter the parking lot. You stand in front of your little sedan for what seems like ages, but the two of you eventually realize your food is going to spoil if you waste any more time.
That’s when a lowrider swerves into the parking lot, music blaring out the windows, bass so high you can feel it vibrate across your bones. These kids are sitting at the wheel, barely out of school, high on whatever youthful pride they have. They think they’re better than anyone who isn’t them, and need to say so in order to keep that ego of theirs in check.
And Nick makes an easy target.
“Hey guys, check out this pigskin over here. Look at the freak show. Hey, homie, where your teeth at?”
You narrow your eyes, feeling a familiar anger boiling somewhere deep inside.
“Nowhere you need to be concerned about,” Nick answers calmly. It almost sounds by the book, like he does this a lot
He probably does.
“Oh shit,” says one of the passengers. “Hey, it’s that cop orc. The one from TV!”
“Shit, you’re right, bro. A pig that’s actually a pig.”
“Hey, why you wanna be a cop? You wanna get paid to shoot humans?”
Nick nods slowly, eyes closing in annoyance. “Alright, you’ve had your fun now, move along.”
You look at him, surprised. Why won’t he defend himself?
“You hear this guy?” the driver asks his friends. “Look, pigskin, you ain’t in uniform. I ain’t gotta go anywhere.”
Nick leans down, looking in the window properly. “I’m asking you to leave nicely.”
“Nicely? Look man, why don’t you come over here and tell me to leave, or the LAPD take your dick along with your teeth?”
You slam your hand down on the hood of the vehicle and look in the window, fire in your eyes. “Hey, asshole, just cause you haven’t done anything with your shitty little life doesn’t mean you get to take it out on everyone else.”
Nick reaches for your arm. “(Y/N), you don’t need-”
“You hear this bitch? Who you think you are?”
“I’m the girl who’s gonna put a nice new dent in your head if you don’t step off.”
And you’d do it too. You grew up around here. Life taught you early on that you can’t take shit from anyone. Whatever they deal to you, you deal back twofold. People learned real quick not to mess with the short girl.
“(Y/N)-”
“You defending this freak? You his bitch or something?”
“Maybe I am,” you offer, ignoring Nick as he tries to keep you from doing something stupid. No one could ever stop you from doing that. Your conscience stopped trying a long time ago. “You got a problem with that?”
“Can’t stick with your own kind?” asks the kid in the passenger’s seat. “Gotta go hook up with some orc fuck that-”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as you throw the first thing that your hand grabs into the car.
The peanut butter jar smashes against the window right by his head.
“Jesus! This bitch is crazy!” the driver shouts as he puts the car in drive. The tires squeal as they flee the scene.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going!” you shout as Nick swiftly wraps his arm around your waist and picks you up off the ground with ease. You flail in his grip, your anger nowhere near done with the boys. “You can’t take it from a little girl, huh? How’d you think you’d do against an orc!”
“(Y/N)!” Nick shouts, setting you down. He puts his hands up to keep you from escaping around him in order to pursue the car. “(Y/N), enough!”
You quiet down, though you’re still panting, trying to find a way to let the anger go.
Nick lowers his arms. “You know I’m a cop, right? I could arrest you for something like that.”
“Well, I wasn’t about to stand there and let them talk to you like that. Someone has to defend you, if you won’t.”
He sighs. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just…I’ve got people watching me all the time. I do anything remotely out of line, that’s my career. Over. Done. I don’t have much choice.”
You stop and take a good, hard look at Nick. It never occurred to you that he would be in the position. But you remember all those news pieces on him. No one was a fan of an orc on the force. Of course they would be looking for a way to get rid of him.
“Well, I do,” you say, touching his arm so his eyes lock with yours. He doesn’t say it, but you can see the gratitude in his eyes. “And there’s no way I’ll ever let anyone speak to you like that.”
His lips part, surprised. He has never heard this from a human before. It’s so strange and…wonderful.
He watches you look in the direction the car disappeared. “Damn, I really wanted that peanut butter.”
This makes him laugh, hard. He can’t help it. The stress of the last couple minutes needs a release and there’s no better way than laughing until you can’t breathe in the parking lot of a grocery store.
“Laugh it up, tall stuff,” you say with a kind smile. You enjoy the laughter, despite sounding the opposite way. “Look, I gotta get to work, but maybe I’ll see you again some time, yeah?”
Nick nods, feeling disappointment well in his chest. “Yeah…yeah, I’ll just look for someone hanging off the shelves.”
“You know, I don’t have to like you.”
“No, you just have to defend my honor.”
You shrug as you get into your car. Waving goodbye to Nick, you drive away from the store, wondering if you’d just made a big mistake by not giving him your number.
It doesn’t matter anyway, because Nick shows up at your store a couple hours later with a jar of peanut butter in hand.
