Warnings: Gender-neutral reader, no use of Y/N, making out, handjobs, oral sex, mutual masturbation.
Wordcount: 6688
Summary: You've been together six months now, but while you're ready for that next step, his pessimism is contagious, and you have to wonder if he's ready for it too.
Notes: Finally, a sequel to this! Technically it's set a few months before the ending, but still, it's a sequel hehe 💗💗 Not me loudly saying I'm back and then getting so sick I spent a week and a half in bed unable to do anything but cough and watch movies ;w; This one's been on hold since I started at work, wanted to write it so bad while I was sick but I was so out of it I couldn't concentrate on anything and I knew sitting at my computer would only make it worse, so I accepted my fate and caught up on the movies I've been wanting to see. Still have a cough but I'm well enough to go back to work, so the readers will resume for real this time TwT Anyway I keep getting asks about Simon in particular, so I moved around my queue just for you guys hehe I hope you like it 💗
The air in your apartment is abuzz as you prepare for his arrival, your eyes going to the clock so often as you clean that you need to change the display on the TV so it practically takes up half the screen, overlayed loudly across the movie you put on as background noise. You aren't sure if he remembers, but you certainly do, the texts on your phone trailing back a year exactly to the day you first met at his old job. He's sentimental about a lot of things when it comes to you, you're so aware of that now that you aren't sure how you ever missed it before in those six months you both tried to get over your unknowingly mutual crushes; he was so much smarter than even you knew, because he remembered every little thing you ever told him, so now that you're together, he's constantly surprising you by bringing you things you offhandedly mentioned you liked in the past, or taking you places on your dates that you'd mentioned you wanted to visit, or revisit anew with him.
It'd been bliss in the following six months with him, and now you want to return the favour by doing something special for him to commemorate the day you first met. When deciding on what to do, you knew you didn't want to bring him back to his old job, and the Hotel was kind of ruined since he'd all but stolen their head cook to come work for him, so, as you cleaned your apartment up and checked on dinner back and forth until you became dizzy, you think again about the one thing you could do for him that might make today truly special.
He already had a key, but you were finally going to take that step and invite him to live with you, permanently.
He practically lives there already with how often he visits, he even has a drawer to call his own in your room, but the rest of his things are still at his trailer, and he hasn't said a single word about finishing the move. You have a feeling that maybe it's because it was all his, the one thing he was able to get after that black mark on his life nearly ruined it, so it was hard to let go of it. He didn't fit inside, his bed was actually a loveseat he curled up on, and his kitchen, which used to be mostly full of takeout he brought from work, was now very empty since he ate with you daily, but still he chooses to go back to it on the nights he knows you're already asleep or away, instead of to your spacious and comfortable apartment.
You pause in the middle of folding your blankets at the memory of the time you asked him about it, how he'd brushed it off like he always did with things he doesn't want to talk about, and take a look around your room; he doesn't show it anymore, but those first few weeks of owning your spare key were weird for him, now that you knew how he felt about how well off you were compared to him. He doesn't have that envy anymore, as far as you know, but it had seeped into every moment he thought you couldn't see, into those big windows and beautiful view and spacious rooms until you started to hate them.
You didn't, and still don't, want him to feel that way, in fact you want him to love this place so that he could make it his new home, but now that you were so close to making that your reality, you were having second thoughts on if he actually wanted that, let alone if he was ready for it. It would be so nice to take that step with him, to permanently wake up to him instead of just whenever he chose to stay, to have him set up his own space for his desk and spread out all his things, to have him take over every room until they were just as much his as they were yours.
It sounds wonderful, a beautiful dream after the nightmare he had to go through, but was he really ready to just give up his sanctuary he'd been too afraid to even bring you to for yours? Would he be okay with making this place his home, or would he see your offer as something akin to a handout after all the approaching? You groan in frustration, his negativity came with him when you got together and you don't want to offend him, but you can't help but also assume that this won't make him happy. You think about moving, maybe there was a place he wanted and you could both use your money to get it, a mutual agreement, but would even that be too much?
‘Hey, Simon, I know we've only been together for six months, but do you wanna buy a place with me so you don't have to live in that trailer anymore?’
Oh yeah, he'd hate that.
You toss your blanket onto the end of the bed, some extra warmth for your feet in the fall months with winter fast approaching, the folding you'd just done becoming a mess as you run your hands through your hair; you can't just shelf this and do dinner like this isn't what you really want with him, you'd spent too much time thinking about it and now you know you can't be satisfied with him only visiting, too much wasted time between all the pining and thinking you'd lost him building this up as a grand show of how much you love him. But you know it's something you need to talk about with him first, you'd sprung the key on him only a month into dating and he'd been stunned for the rest of the day, you couldn't do that to him again with an entire house, and you reluctantly accept that when you hear the lock turn back in the other room.
You hide your disappointment and help him get the door, he's right on time thanks to always being sure to leave when the traffic is nice, his Brougham ordered and ready by the time he walks out. His hands are full as always but you expected that, and he pauses at the smell of food as you cheekily take the bags of takeout from him and place them on the counter, you'd put them in the fridge later. ‘You made dinner?’ he asks as he takes off his shoes, his eyes going for the stove to try and start putting together your menu, and you nod and check the time on the roast; him not staying the night allowed you to let it marinate almost 24 hours, and you're so ready to finally be able to dig into it after marinating in its scent as much as it did in the delicious broth you whipped up for it.
‘Yeah, I figured might as well,’ you lie, you'll break the news when you're splitting a bottle of wine on the couch, and he chews at his lip and hangs up his coat, his cheeks already dusting.
‘You should've texted me,’ he says next, the takeout mixing in with the smells of your dinner, but you wave his words away and grab some plates, no time to waste when he only has an hour.
‘I wanted to surprise you,’ you admit when you're turned away from him, the big spoon you'd been using to stir the veggies now scooping them out of their sauce and onto his plate, and your eyes widen when he comes up behind you to wrap his arms around your waist.
‘Thanks,’ he whispers in your ear, a shiver running up your spine and making you swallow, ‘I don't want you to think I'm not ungrateful or anything…’
‘I don't, I never do,’ you reassure him again, he still needs a lot of that, and you don't elbow him off as you drag him over to the crackpot to start grabbing the roast. ‘I know I'm no Elison but I hope all of this is okay, I mean, you know I don't really cook cook, but I found these recipes online and they were all highly rated-’
‘Hey, it smells delicious,’ he's the one to reassure you this time with a kiss to the side of your head, and you fail to hide your smile when you turn to hand him his food. He takes the plate from you and scoops some potatoes as well, you decided to go with classic mashed but said recipes gave you some good tips on how to season them, and when he eats a bit off the big spoon he hums in bliss. ‘Tastes even better, might have to get you to come work for me.’
‘As a cook? You gotta be kidding, I'd get the place shut down in a week,’ you joke right back, but it just makes you think about seeing him every day again and you busy yourself with making your own plate. ‘Anyway, I don't think my clients will like it very much if I drop all of them, even though it'd be nice to see you in your uniform, bossing people around all day.’
‘You know I don't have a uniform,’ he mumbles to hide the fact that he's blushing, ever the lightweight when it comes to your flirting, ‘the thought of seeing you in one sounds kinda nice, though.’
A mutual standoff as he backtracks while you nearly drop your plate, his eyes wide and his words fumbled so entirely that they stop being English, but you just get a hold of yourself and laugh your way to the couch so you can quickly hide the giant clock overlay and get your remaining streaming service back to the main menu. He's pursing his lips and looking away from you when he sits down, clearly stuck in a, ‘Why did I say that?’ loop despite you telling him many many times that you want him to be more open with his flirting, and you cherish it as you grab the wine and bottle opener as well as two glasses, the perfect addition to a nice, home cooked meal.
You sit down and offer him a glass, Simon holding it politely as you uncork the bottle and pour for him and then yourself, he'd picked something while your back was turned, and your smile falters when you look to the TV and see that it's a romance; he's definitely picked up on the vibes you've been trying to set, it was even a classic and not one of those new romcoms with jokes that don't mesh with your humour and just make the scenes feel awkward, something he agreed on. ‘I like this one, it's one of my favourites,’ you casually point out without looking at him, your hands busily cutting into your meat and veggies so you can start eating, and he downs half his wine before concentrating solely on the screen.
‘I know, you mentioned it a couple times, I thought tonight might be a good night to check it out,’ he replies just as nonchalantly, but his hands are shaking as he tears the meat apart until there's a huge pile of it. You watch as he swallows and finishes off his wine, pours another, and you smile fondly and reach over to place your hand on his, make him calm enough to stop the shakes.
‘Hey, I'm glad I get to watch it with you tonight,’ you tell him a bit too softly, there's something about him that always disarms you and makes you soft around him, and he nods once, then twice, and then can't seem to stop as he bounces his knee and sets down his plate, his nods changing to him shaking his head as he turns on his cushion to face you.
‘I've got something I want- that I need to tell you before we get too far with this, okay?’ he says so suddenly that it makes you worried, and all at once you go from wanting to at least savour the meal to worrying about being dumped. ‘I know it's outta nowhere, and- and don't be upset with me, okay? But I've been thinking about this a lot, and I can't see any other way around it, so, so-’
‘Please don't break up with me.’
‘Do you wanna move in with me?’
You both pause, just blinking as you register what each other said, your worried tears falling in both relief and shock when it hits you that he isn't dumping you. ‘Wh-what'd you just say?’
‘I uh, shit I didn't mean to make you cry, I'm not breaking up with you, I swear to god I'm not, I wanted to ask it after the movie but I got worried that I'd back out if I didn't say it right away, because why would you ever want to-’
‘Simon,’ you interrupt him when he starts panicking, his eyes looking everywhere but at you when he sees your tears again, but this time they're falling because you're happy, you're so happy that you completely forget about every single time you thought you were losing him, from the loan to the date to him trying to ghost you, because his hands are in yours and he wanted to live with you, he really wants to live with you! ‘I was actually going to ask if you wanted to move in with me, too,’ you confess to him right back, his eyes latching hard onto you as tears of his own well up and blur his vision the same way yours are.
‘But I'm a loser,’ he tries, like he hadn't asked first, and you pull him into a quick kiss and taste the wine.
‘You’re not, and I can't believe… I love you so much,’ you laugh when you pull back again, those magic words instantly flipping the switch and making him melt, your own food getting moved aside as you cradle his head to your chest.
‘Back when I met you I wanted to do better, be better for you, so I started looking for places to live again,’ he mumbles into your shirt, the movie completely ignored in the background. ‘I had thoughts of inviting you over, making someplace nice for us to hang out at when we got closer, and then, when I realized I only wanted you… I started looking for bigger places, so you could get your own office instead of me, cause somewhere along the line I… I wanted you to be there with me, but it was too fast, I wasn't even sure if you liked me back.’ He sniffs, wipes at his nose but doesn't move away, shifting closer to you as subtly as he can. ‘But then you brought me here, and I saw all this and knew that wherever I went I'd never be good enough for you, I just wouldn't…’
‘Simon,’ you warn him sadly, you were really trying to get him out of this kind of thought since he didn't want to go to therapy just yet, and he catches himself and makes sure you know that he doesn't think that way anymore before continuing.
‘I kept looking, even knowing I'd never be able to provide enough to get a place as nice as this I couldn't stop checking online, and- and I found one! It's not as open but it has two rooms, so you could have your office, I could put my computer anywhere, and the bedroom was nice, and the view was even pretty okay, but…’ He sits up and looks away again, the tears from being complimented stopped once more in his honesty. ‘I couldn't afford it, it's still open on my phone even though I can't possibly get it after opening C0NN3CT10N$, and I couldn't ask you to get it with me, but I want to be with you, from the moment we met a year ago today I wanted that connection to be with you, so, before I back out again, do you wanna- will you move in with me?’
You really can't believe your ears, he really was perfect for you in the most frustratingly painful of ways, and you hold his hands again and make sure he can't run away as you meet his eye. ‘I was gunna ask you to move in with me tonight, after we finished eating,’ you say with a smile as your bottom lip quivers, and he looks so in love that he almost starts crying again. ‘I should've known you would've remembered we met a year ago today.’
‘I brought all your favourites, I wanted to surprise you,’ he grins with a glance to the takeout, and now you really feel the need to eat all of it in one big feast of adoration. You throw yourself into his arms, knocking him back and making his long leg smack into your coffee table, the glasses threatening to tip over with a warning wobble, and you laugh before nuzzling into his chest the way you can never get enough of. He holds you close, tonight turned out so much better than you'd hoped after so much doubt, and before you know it you're kissing him even more passionately than the couple still on TV.
He still isn't that used to kisses, even after months they make him weak, Simon immediately starting to melt into your cushions as his body relaxes, feeding off of the positive attention until a particularly wonton moan catches you both off guard. He clams right up, his eyes wide again, and you laugh before deciding that microwaves exist for a reason; you pause the movie, the screensaver would certainly save the screen from getting their kiss burned into it as you force yourself to stand, and he follows after you as you lead him to the bedroom. After that first time he has yet to open up enough to fully sleep with you, and it didn't take a genius to know that he was nervous about his lack of experience. It was pretty obvious, with his track record and the way he had a habit of making you stop before you rubbing him through his pants became enough to make him come, you gave him all your patience and didn't draw attention to it, another thing to work through when he was ready.
But if you were going to live together you didn't want to have to buy a second bed just so he didn't have to sleep on the couch, since he only ever seemed comfortable enough to cuddle with you when you were already sleeping. You don't have to go all the way tonight, you'd have many nights to try that out, but he isn't going back to work without sealing the deal, and he swallows heavily as you shut the door and box him in until his knees are hitting the bed. His legs give out and he falls back, his heart racing hard enough to see the small thump of his shirts, and you resist the urge to eat him up instead of dinner at how incredibly cute one man could be. You're glad that no one else wanted to date him, from the second he came to your table he was yours, he'd all but said it, and you crawl onto the bed and grin at him until his back then hits the headboard.
You don't usually take charge like this, you like making him come undone but he's been so busy with work that you haven't had much time to do anything but kiss and avoid anything too spicy when he visits for his hour to have dinner with you. Tonight wouldn't be the case, they could wait a little longer because the love of your life had just admitted to wanting to live with you for months, he'd even been looking at places, and that was enough reason to make him whine a little with everything you were about to do to him.
‘I-I need to get back before 9:20,’ he reminds you nervously at the look in your eye, but you know he doesn't want to go based on how he's also actively trying to hide how hard he's getting without anything even happening yet.
‘I'll drive you, I'll speed,’ you compromise as you plant yourself on his thighs, trapping him in place before descending on his neck, your hands pulling his layers to the side to get at his flushed skin.
‘I don't want you getting a ticket because o-ah!’ He can't argue when he's too busy trying not to let his voice carry through the walls, but this is a nice place, the sound doesn't travel as easily as he thinks and you very well know it. So you grin against him, suck a mark into pale skin where you know his staff will see when he gets back, but the same isn't on his mind with every attempted thrust into the air for some friction, your body too low to give it to him. His hands find your arms, snake around to your back and your head to hold you in place, he must've been getting backed up for lack of a better word thanks to work, and you make a new decision that he's for sure not leaving this room until you can fix that.
You keep going until he keens, his back arching and his will to keep up appearances gone, he's fully yours and he's ready to accept that if you're ready to prove it, which you've been ready to do since he finally confessed to you. You hum against his skin as your hands travel downwards, go for his belt and lift his shirts out of the way so you can feel the way his stomach heaves under your touch. You drag things out, take it slow even though you'd love to be between his thighs right about now, since the sooner he comes the sooner he'll leave again, you know he will; he'll go to work thinking about how easy it happened and be embarrassed, he'll want to back out of staying with you for being a lightweight, all the excuses he trained you to expect forming in your mind if you gave him a single reason to believe them.
But he doesn't voice them, so you have to silence yourself this time, stay in the moment with him, and he stays in it with you with a shaky exhale when he looks down and watches your hands open his pants. He tries to speak but nothing comes out, you can't help but notice the way he gapes at you in his attempts to form words, and you kiss them away before they can form and swallow up the noises he makes instead. You take him in hand, finish getting him hard - as if he wasn't ready to burst at any second - and give him a light squeeze, your tongue dancing over his when his jaw falls slack. You've only been able to do this a few times, for someone who comes easy he's surprisingly reluctant to let you touch him, just another thing he doesn't want to talk about yet.
He has no qualms tonight, too lost in you to fall into old habits and fears, his mind only on you as you start to grind against his leg for a bit of relief of your own. He moans, like the very thought of you enjoying him this much is more pleasurable than your touch, and so you do it again, giving him some sounds of your own as you pull him out; that's when he stops you, his hands rushing for your wrist to keep you from continuing, and your chest aches for him when you see the blush leave his cheeks only to be replaced with that old look.
‘Wait, we shouldn't,’ he tries to convince you, and you want to argue but you wait, let him explain himself. ‘I like you, okay, I really do, I always have, but- we should give it more time, I'm still getting used to this, I don't- shit, I don't want…’ he stutters again, unable to word his fears as he starts to soften, and you frown and get him to look at you instead of focusing on your floor.
‘Simon, what exactly do you think will happen if I sleep with you?’ you ask as carefully as you can, and he shakes his head, he doesn't want to say it. ‘Look, I know it's your first time, but I want to be your first, I want to have this with you. We don't have to do it tonight, but you have no idea how much I-’
‘This isn't my first time,’ he cuts in so suddenly that you choke on your next word.
‘It's not?’
‘No, it's just… been a while,’ he admits to you, but now you're confused because if he wasn't holding back due to that, then what troubled him? He must see the look on your face because he sits back, his hands covering himself and his face reddening again, but in embarrassment this time. ‘The last person I was with, it was before my time at the Academy, so it's been years now, but she… It was just a hookup, something we decided to do on the fly when I was celebrating getting accepted, but when we got to the hotel and things started, I dunno.
‘I thought I did everything right, I c- she got me off while we were getting ready, I could've gone again but she got so annoyed, thought I was going to leave her cause I'd gotten what I wanted, didn't wanna listen to me and stormed out.’ He pauses, his hands clenching over each other with a deep frown. ‘And then I got kicked out, lost my place so I stopped meeting people, didn't think I'd ever wanna be with anyone else until I met you. And I like you so much, I don't know how to slow down when we get like this, and every single time you make me feel so good but you never let me… return the favour. I want to, I want to touch you so bad that just the thought of making you feel as good as you make me feel is always enough to get me off when I'm alone, but you never let me.’
You sit back and just stare, you had no idea he felt that way since you've gotten so into the habit of wanting to cherish him after everyone letting him down. Even when you were also alone and thinking about him you always tend to base your fantasies around everything you want to do to him, and in your attempts to give him attention you made things one-sided. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't realize,’ you mumble as you look down this time, but the second he sees he's made you upset the entire mood flips, his hands leaving his lap to grab onto you; you fall back, his long legs easily sliding out to allow him to shift until he's the one kneeling over you, loosely straddling you as you stare up at him. Your mouth goes dry at the sight, you've never given him the chance to be on top, and something about him feels different from this position.
‘I don't want you to focus on me, I can last if you let me focus on you,’ he pleads but it isn't desperate, he just wants the chance to cherish you back, and you swallow before reaching between his legs and wrapping your hand back around him.
‘I can be patient, if you say you can do more then I don't want to stop until you're satisfied, so let me touch you first, at least for tonight,’ you whisper to him, his Adam's apple bobbing and his eyes welling up again before he kisses you, his hips moving so he could fuck your hand. You grin and let him move to your neck, his eager mouth getting used to worshiping you in real time until he latches on and whines. He loves this, this is something he clearly doesn't want to hold back on, and his right hand explores your body while his left holds himself up. He's a never ending symphony of sound above you, enjoying this chance while taking what he needs, and when he comes it’s with a jut of his hips and a broken sound you've never heard before.
You feel the warmth spread over your clothes as he drips white onto your stomach, your eyes shutting in bliss as he savours the moment before getting right back to it. He really was ready to go again, another misunderstanding getting in the way of all the possibilities he'd just opened up to you, and you love him all the more as he pushes your shirt over your head. He travels down, finally getting acquainted with your body after many nights of you slowly learning every inch of him, and you watch him with a smile when his pants get in the way and he kicks them off entirely. It's the most you've seen of him, his dick already getting hard again as the mere feeling of your body under his hands becomes everything he's ever wanted.
So many nights staying up late, going through the trashed data, watching couples come to his places of work and eating together, his hands touching everything except for another person while the people he went to shot him down for this or that. Now he was yours, and he could touch you whenever he wanted, and apparently he really wants to get a proper start on that, his hands slipping underneath you to cup your ass and shift you closer to him.
You laugh, you love seeing him be able to revel in this without any doubt, and he lets out a small chuckle at the sound of your voice before latching onto a nipple. He teases it lightly between his teeth, licks and sucks at sensitive skin until it becomes too much for him and he's the one that needs a break even though you're the one getting stimulated. You laugh again, let him rut against your leg and just breathe a moment, and wait for him to shift down until he's between your spread thighs.
‘All these months I've wanted to do this,’ he sighs at the sight, his hands now undoing your pants and pulling them down your hips, his breath coming out a little faster until he suddenly stops again and scrambles for his clothes. You sit up, worried that something might be wrong when he pulls out his phone, his body moving faster than his brain can keep up with before he comes to his senses all at once. ‘Sorry! Sorry, I just- I've been thinking about this for months now, I save everything you send me, I even made you your own folder but I haven't been able to ask yet-’ Another pause, his phone aimed from you to the sheets as his eyes widen. ‘I'm being creepy again, aren't I?’
‘You're being yourself, and that's exactly why I fell in love with you,’ you reassure him truly and honestly, your hands angling the camera back at your bare body and your heart racing faster because of it. ‘I've never done this before, you won't share these with anyone, will you?’
‘Fuck no!’ he blurts out in shock, like the very idea of anyone else seeing you this way is a crime punishable by law, and you relax under his gaze and let yourself open up in the camera's view. You wordlessly give him permission to pose you, let yourself be moved as his thumb presses repeatedly over the button to save you to his memory, his eyes focused and serious at this new level of trust. It isn't as embarrassing as you think it would be, in fact, you really feel like you're his this way, and when he's satisfied, or can't wait anymore, he sets his phone down on your nightstand and lowers himself between your thighs. His mouth worships you like no one ever has before, mapping every inch to his own memory between kisses and sucked marks into your skin.
Your head falls back and you just let him work, your fingers tangling into his hair and messing up it too much to return to work like that, but the bar is now the last thing on his mind for once; he moans against you, nails digging into goosebumped skin, urging you to come until your back arches and you do on his tongue. His eyes roll back as he savours the taste, and when your eyes meet again you have to wonder if he's also thinking that this might be heaven. You don't have a chance to ask, your afterglow isn't ready yet, and he grins at you as he leans back against your headboard once more and starts to stroke himself.
‘Told you, I can go again,’ he pants at the sight of you undone before him, and you lick your lips before mirroring him, spreading wetness over yourself before touching hot and sensitive skin. Your legs are heavy as you force yourself to get up, crawl back onto his lap and find your place there, your hands moving to chase a second release as your mouths find each other again. You don't take back control, you're feeling a bit too boneless to ride him, but touching yourself while he gets off to you will very much suffice for tonight, and he seems to agree with another tight grip to your ass.
You can feel his knuckles brush yours as you work, your back arching against him, riding the high of it all until you break first, collapsing hard against his chest and moaning into his shoulder until you can’t move anymore. That's enough for him, Simon crying again as he comes a second time, his mouth open with another broken sound until the most content smile takes over as he relaxes under you with a pleased sigh.
You can feel him still twitching when you close the space between you, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, his dick giving a tired throb between your legs and his come mixing with his first mess. You both catch your breath, the room filled with the sounds of you until he laughs again, and you look up to see him covering his eyes and smiling like a madman. ‘What?’ you ask when he starts to cry harder, and he opens his fingers to look at you through them.
‘I love you so much,’ is all he says, and he means it with every part of him, not a trace of doubt showing in his watery eyes. ‘You really feel the same for me, don't you?’
‘Of course I do, I wanted you to have a spare key to my place before we even started dating,’ you remind him with a small shove, and he wipes away his tears and looks around for something to then wipe his hand off on. ‘You don't know how happy I am that you want to live with me, this place always feels so empty when you're not here now,’ you softly confess to him, Simon stilling under you with a small hitch of breath. ‘Those mornings when I wake up and you're still here are some of the best I've ever had, getting to open my eyes and see you, I wish you didn't have to open so early.’
‘...No one's ever… I never thought anyone would feel this way about me, not after what happened.’ He sniffs and you kiss away the next tear that falls, your hand finding his and linking fingers together, clasped between your chests.
‘I told you that your black marks didn't make you who you were, and yeah, I feel so much for you that I want you to move in here. And someday in the future we'll get a place where we can each get an office, but for now I want to know what this place looks like with you in it,’ you tell him with more kisses to the tip of his nose, his cheek, his neck, his shoulder. ‘I'll bring my desk into the bedroom so you can appreciate the view for once, we can go shopping for another dresser so you can move in all your clothes, not just a drawer full. I'll order some more bookshelves and you can spread out all the things you collect and make, add some more hooks by the door for your coats, rearrange the cupboards so there’s room for your things, too.
‘I wanna wake up in the morning and hear you showering on the other side of my wall, or tinkering away on your next project in your free time when you get off work. I want my pillows to smell like you, and my blankets to feel warmer with you next to me, and when we sit down for dinner I want to watch you leave with the knowledge that you’ll be back, you’ll always come back.’ You’re saying too much but once you start it all comes out, every single reason that got you to want him to move in in the first place. ‘You’ve spent so long alone, Simon, I want to be the reason you never feel alone again, that is, if you let me.’
He thinks about it for a while, so much longer than you expect considering he was the one to ask you to move in first, and when he opens his mouth the first sound that comes out isn’t a word, but a choked out noise. ‘This place is pretty nice, I can help you move your desk in here this weekend,’ he finally decides with a trembling lip, his words wavering as he fights to keep them straight, which you also mirror when you hear them. ‘House hunting is boring when you do it alone, anyway.’
‘It really is,’ you agree with a weak laugh, your head resting on his shoulder as you look lovingly up at him before you remember that this can’t last. ‘It’s getting late, we never finished eating, you’ll end up going back to work hungry if we don’t get up.’
He considers your words before getting comfortable, the blanket pulled over you before he realizes that he’s about to spread his mess all over your clean sheets; he reaches for his shirt and uses it as a rag, thank goodness he has clothes to spare here, and he tosses it towards your laundry basket and misses spectacularly. ‘It’s been a slow night, I think I can spare another hour to eat, today means a lot to me, after all,’ he announces to you with a flourish of your spared blanket pulled over your shoulder, his other arm wrapping around your back.
‘Means a lot to me, too,’ you murmur as you sink into the bed, your stomach growling for the dinner it missed, but you can be patient forever when it comes to him, ‘besides, who says that you’re the only one who can go more than once?’
He doesn’t answer, but the way you successfully get his face to turn red again says it all; asking him to live with you really was the best decision you could’ve come up with, and you have absolutely no doubt at all about it as he pins you back to the bed with a truly happy smile.
Maybe I’m Not Scared of What You’re Thinking Of - Simon Lynch/Reader
Prompt: Don't you know what you mean to me?
Warnings: Gender-neutral reader, no use of Y/N, friends to lovers, slow burn, growing friendship, angst, hurt/comfort, brief canon-related mention of violence, kissing, fully clothed grinding, kindness and praise makes Simon cry ;w;
Wordcount: 14270
Summary: It's a complete coincidence that you meet him, and even though he's a little weird and there's an anger in him fueled by pain, you know that you might be all he needs to be defused.
Notes: It's Simon's turn! I have a lot of feelings about Simon!! As soon as I saw his episode my heart went out to him a lot, he's so me-coded (aside from y'know the homicide lmao) and he really only needed someone to believe in him, so here's a whole ton of words about you doing just that QwQ I've also decided that this will be his own continued world like I did with Joshua, so any future stuff will take place during or after this~
You really regret accepting this blind date after the 30th straight minute comes and goes, your date still talking about himself on his side of the table.
He came highly recommended from your mother, the son of a friend of a friend of a co-worker, and it’s clear she did no actual research on him since you have nothing in common. You just keep smiling and sipping at your drink of choice, his words falling on deathly bored ears as he keeps trying to pitch his business to you, something about a private server for paying customers to get his advice or some dumb shit you haven’t seen a million times before. Sometimes you wished you’d been born in the past when things were simpler, because any idiot with a podcast and access to the internet always came to the same conclusion that they could be the Next Great Thing, and this guy definitely does not have what it takes.
He’s about to write down his contact info so you can check out his server right now, right in the middle of your date, his food cold in front of him as he just keeps choosing to talk instead of eat, and you just stare at him tearing off the paper to hand to you as you pray your souring expression isn’t giving you away too much. ‘Uh, sorry, I don’t have Facsimile,’ you lie as he holds it out to you, but it doesn’t dissuade him as he then says it’s super easy to sign up, he’ll help you. ‘No, I mean I’m not one for all these chatting apps, I prefer some good, old fashioned talking,’ you continue, another lie although not quite as much, for while you do prefer talking face to face, hence the date, you had so many chat apps on your phone to keep in contact with everyone that they had their own page on your home screen.
‘It’ll be worth it, trust me, I already have a bunch of guys giving their own presentations on my server, I’ll even give you a free week’s trial to check everything out, whattaya say?’ he asks, clearly more interested in expanding his brand than making any sort of actual connection with you, and this time you let your face scrunch up in pained awkwardness.
‘Yeah, it’s gunna have to be a no, sorry,’ you cringe, and his smile slowly falls as he crumples up the paper and stuffs it inside his expensive name brand jacket, obviously bought to show off to everyone how ‘successful’ he was.
‘Fine, no it’s fine, I just thought you were smarter than that,’ he grumbles just on the border of passive aggressively, your eyebrows rising as your opinion of him somehow manages to drop even lower. ‘You figure you give someone a chance to get in on the ground floor of something because you think you’re vibing, but I guess it was just me.’
‘Uh…’
‘How is everything?’ The small voice draws your attention from him as you look up to your savior, your eyes just going higher as the person towers over you, even when he’s hunched over a bit to take up as little space as possible as his co-workers pass by him to get to the other tables. Your mouth falls open a little bit as your eyes meet, long bangs just barely swept to the side to reveal dark brown irises that almost appear black focusing only on you as he ignores your date, and you forget to answer as the man across from you answers for you.
‘We’re doing great, just fantastic, thanks buddy,’ he growls, now eating his food as quickly as he can so he can get away from you. ‘If you could hurry up and grab the checks though that would be even better.’
‘Is there anything else you’d like? More water, or a refill?’ He completely ignores the other man as he focuses on you, which pisses him off even more, and you join in on that as you smile politely up at him.
‘Everything’s perfect, although I could go for a refill, thank you,’ you tell him, and he gives you a nod without once acknowledging your date, who’s already gotten out his wallet and is looking up the prices of the bar on his phone; he pulls out enough to cover the meal but passes over his beer and the tax, because that’s too much work to calculate it even with his phone in hand, and he gets up and sarcastically wishes you a nice life as he bails, the silence a nice change as you continue eating alone. Your server returns a short while later with a new glass and the checks, and when he sees the money left behind he puts two and two together.
‘I take it I’m not getting a tip from him,’ he figures, and you laugh into your glass, almost spilling the liquid all over the table as you try not to choke.
‘I doubt you would’ve anyway, he was a prick,’ you admit, which makes him smile, and you decide his smile is actually quite nice as he starts clearing the other half of the table. ‘Hey, uh, would you wanna sit with me? Just for a little, it’s kinda embarrassing to eat alone after that disaster.’
He glances at the freshly vacant seat before looking around, and he leans over to lower his voice, his eyes on the table as he speaks. ‘I should really get back to work,’ he whispers, but you gesture in front of you in a welcoming manner, and he follows your hands before sitting and hiding his apron behind his arms, the nametag of Simon just barely peeking out before it’s covered up.
You flash him another smile before getting back to your lunch, it’s amazing how listening to someone that incredibly annoying can really kill the appetite in the moment, and he tries not to watch you as he makes sure he’s not about to get in trouble. You finish off your first glass and start on the second since you did ask him for it, even if it was an excuse to ignore your date initially, and you catch the way his eyes watch your exposed throat as you tilt your head back; unlike the other person sitting there previously you don’t feel objectified, or like you were a piece of meat to devour after the sell was over. It’s refreshing, and you offer him your plate in case he might want something to eat before his break, but he refuses, of course he would.
He keeps his eye on his watch but never gets up, and as you pop a fry into your mouth you can’t help but want to talk to him as he meets your eye and looks away immediately after for the third time in a row. ‘You work here long?’ you ask to start, and it’s a lame start, but just the fact that you wanna hear about him has him leaning forward in his seat before he controls himself, sits back again.
‘Just a few years, this is actually my second job, I mainly work with Data Waste,’ he tells you, his voice getting away from him for a moment before he lowers it again; it’s obvious that no one asks about him often, just this small amount of attention enough to make his face light up in a way you don't see often anymore, at least not when you talk about work related things.
‘So, you waste all the data?’ you joke, and he leans in again, the plate pushed aside as he fights to keep his voice under control.
‘No, it’s really interesting actually, I get access to all the trashed data in the city, sift through it to find anything incriminating or important, things that were lost or gotten rid of, delete anything useless; my co-workers think it’s pretty boring, but you can’t imagine the things I’ve seen on some people.’ He stops, realizing he’s about to violate his NDA, and you chuckle as he looks around again like he expects his boss from his other job to suddenly appear and fire him.
‘Sounds exciting, you ever see anything on me?’ you can’t help but ask as you lean in as well, and there’s a slight dusting of pink on his cheeks as he sits back again.
‘I dunno, I’d need to look up your name,’ he answers honestly, and you smirk at his reply.
‘Pretty smooth way to ask for it,’ you tell him, and when he stutters out that he wasn’t you just laugh and grab the check so you can see your total. You pull out your card so you can pay, and you’re in the middle of reaching for your ex-date’s check as well so you can cover the rest when he stops you.
‘I’ve got it, you don’t have to deal with trash like him, that’s my job,’ he jokes back, and when he hands you his card reader you make sure to leave a large tip from the both of you. You hand it back and his eyes go wide, he can’t accept this, but you just flash him your most charming smile and hand him one of your business cards from your wallet, something you printed up years ago but rarely got to hand out since most people used electronic cards nowadays.
‘It’s for making me laugh, today would’ve been pretty shitty otherwise,’ you admit as you stand, and when he stands with you you can see that he really is tall.
‘Okay, well… if I find anything I’ll give you a call, then? Just so you know what people are deleting about you on the internet,’ he offers, and you hold out your hand to shake his as your expressions softens.
‘I’d like that.’
It’s been a week and a half since your lunch date gone wrong but also surprisingly gone right again, and you’re at home working on a project when an unknown number lights up your phone. You frown at it before clicking into the chat and seeing a bunch of strange messages before the stranger clears things up.
ur sqky clean no trash on u
sry it took so long was busy
this is simon sry
from the bar
from last week sry
You smile fondly as you type in a quick reply, your phone lighting up again as he answers fast, he must’ve been waiting with baited breath on the other side. You add his number to your phone and answer back, another quick reply getting you to decide to take a snack break as you bring your phone to the kitchen. The more you chat the more he sees that he doesn’t have to use shorthand, his words lengthening and becoming more proper until you’re wondering if maybe he’s trying to find the perfect mix that won’t annoy you. Eventually he settles on a mix like you do, and you get comfy on the couch with your snack as you turn on the TV and find something to watch.
It’s hard to find things sometimes, you’ve had this older model for years and it isn’t compatible with every streaming platform’s updates anymore, which you think is dumb, but the thing works and you don’t wanna shell out money just to be able to watch whatever new reality show everyone’s talking about as it airs. You stick to your playlist of favourite movies and shows again, settling on one you’ve already seen a million times so you can chat without needing to pay attention.
After a half hour you add each other to Facsimile so you can chat more openly without wasting data, his username of 4LM0ST-HUM4N making you snicker as you check out his profile, but it’s bare apart from his age, which is around yours, and his full name, his last name being Lynch. You can’t help but look him up since you already knew he’d done the same to you, and all you can find is a dating profile on a site you’d heard about but never used.
‘“Shy and looking,”’ you say out loud to yourself as you read his info, and you sink a little further into the cushions as his unfortunately off-putting but also undeniable cute profile picture stares you directly in the eye; you can tell he took it alone, he’s all washed out in the glow of his computer instead of from the room’s overhead or any natural light, and you almost want to call him out on it and help him try again, maybe he might get some matches that way.
You don’t mention the profile as you keep chatting, and before you know it the next movie is autoplaying, your battery low with how long you’ve been on your phone. You figure it’s about time you get back to work as you tell him about the situation, and he agrees, he’s also been putting off work, and you wish him a good night, adding in, ‘That data’s not gunna waste itself.’ He sends you a bunch of laughing emojis before changing his mind and editing the message so there’s only one, to which you give him one back, and he starts typing something else but stops. You wait but he never starts up again so you leave it be, your phone charging out of reach as you get back to work.
Now that you’ve been reminded that he exists and you find his company quite pleasant, you take a ride to the bar on your lunch break the next day, keeping your eye out as casually as you can until you see him clearing a table nearby. You wait until he’s done before waving at him to get his attention, and his smile is so big that it makes him self-conscious as a group of people pass him by, it faltering as he gets out of their way. He takes his dishes to the kitchen and quickly returns to take your order, and even though you’re sitting at a table and a menu is in your hands, you surprise him when you ask him when his break is instead of telling him what you want to eat.
‘My break?’ he repeats back to you, like he doesn’t understand the question.
‘I just figured you might want to eat somewhere you don’t work,’ you simply say, and he glances at his watch to check the time.
‘I get off in 15, but we can eat here, I don’t wanna take up your break by traveling,’ he offers, but you just shake your head and set the menu down.
‘I work from home, I can take as long as I want,’ you tell him, and it’s not exactly a lie since you do have some things to for sure finish today, but losing an extra hour to hang out with your new friend seems like a pretty good tradeoff honestly. He accepts your answer and goes back to work with a shy grin, and you patiently wait at your table until he returns, a brown hoodie slung over his arm and his apron left behind.
You get up and follow him out to the street where he gets ready to hail a cab, and thanks to your convo from last night you already knew he didn’t drive, but you don’t want him to waste any money when your car was in the parking lot. You direct him to it, and in your head you can hear your mother warning you about letting strangers into your vehicle, but apart from being a little weird he has yet to give you any red flags or warning signs, so you unlock the door and hop in.
‘There’s this place downtown that’s pretty good,’ he says as soon as he sits down, and you try not to giggle when you see how his long legs don’t really fit in the space as he tries to find the seat adjust nonchalantly. ‘They mostly do burgers, but their menu is loaded with stuff, you just need to know what to ask for.’
‘I take it you know?’
He glances at you, his hand stilling momentarily as it's wedged between the door and his seat, and when he does find the button he lets out a noise of surprise as his chair suddenly shifts backwards. ‘Yeah, yeah I go there a bunch, I think I’ve tried almost everything so far.’
‘Why not get a job there instead of here if you like it so much?’ you ask as you start the engine, and he looks down at his lap in response.
‘Cause I- I actually didn’t apply to be a waiter,’ he mumbles, your head turning towards him as you pull out onto the road.
‘Did you wanna work in the kitchen or something?’
‘I wanted to be a bartender, actually, but they needed a server, so that’s what I landed on,’ he explains, and when you go to ask for the name of the place he just directs you down the street, ignoring the GPS entirely. ‘It’s actually been a little dream of mine to open my own place, but starting a business is expensive, and saving up is a little hard even with two jobs, city living isn’t cheap.’
‘You could try for a loan?’ you suggest, but he just shakes his head.
‘I dunno… going that far would make it real, y’know? I don’t think I’m ready for it yet.’ He points to the left as he speaks so you hit your blinker and turn, this is a part of town you’ve never been to before.
‘You could always try, and if it doesn’t work out then I’ll keep cheering you on until it does.’ He’s looking at you like your words are about to make him cry, and he’s so preoccupied with you that he nearly misses the restaurant, your brakes screeching down the thankfully empty road as you back up and turn into the parking lot. You’ve never even heard of this place but the lot is almost full, and you manage to find a spot before he’s getting out and waiting for you, the chill of the fresh, spring air making you both shiver and hurry inside.
The place is warm and cozy, the smell of food instantly making you hungry even though you were feeling pretty okay just moments ago, and he smiles at you before you seat yourself and wait to be served. A large menu is placed in front of you and he was right, it is mostly burgers first and foremost, but as you turn the pages and see everything else available you feel your mouth water. You look up to ask what he recommends just in time to see his eyes disappear over the top of his own menu, and you grin and decide you can’t beat the house special, which is a double bacon burger with everything on it. He orders the same as soon as you tell the waitress, a big plate of loaded fries to split as well as onion rings added as well, and when you’re left alone again you rest your elbows on the table and get his attention.
‘How long have you been coming here? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about it before,’ you admit, and again his eyes shine when you ask about him.
‘Most of my life, I used to live around here when I was younger so this was our go-to place when we wanted to eat out,’ he explains lively, and he looks around and gestures towards the decor. ‘It was different back then, they did a rebranding back in the early 2030s, changed the name and everything, but I still call it by its old name whenever I recommend it.’
‘What was the old name?’
‘The Hotel.’
You laugh, your hand covering your mouth as you try to keep it down. ‘I bet that might’ve caused some confusion,’ you chuckle, and he nods.
‘Oh yeah, I always have to correct myself,’ he agrees with his own laugh, the two of you still going even as your drinks are dropped off. You sip at yours, taking in everything and wondering what the place looked like back then when he stretches out and accidentally bumps your knee with his own; he quickly says sorry as he tries to retreat back to his side of the table, but you tell him it’s okay, and your reassurance makes him balk, like he’s been told off too many times for similar occurrences.
‘So, tell me, why do you wanna open your own bar?’ you quickly ask before he can shut himself off from you, his shyness returning and looking more like anxiety as he clearly gets in his own head about something so small.
‘Well, it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, like I love the atmosphere, everyone coming together for a little while to share the space and a few drinks, it’s a good place to forget about your troubles for a bit.’ His eyes are on the table as he fiddles with the brown paper covering, your glasses creating dark rings where they’re set down on it.
‘You can say that about a lot of places,’ you add, and he agrees, but his eyes meet yours as he tries to get you to understand.
‘I know but there’s just something special about it, if your customers come there enough it can become familial, you can make bonds with people, offer them an ear when they’re sad, share in their laughter when they’re happy… I guess I’ve just always wanted to be a part of something like that.’ He looks back down again, the paper tearing and making him stop, now picking at his nails instead.
‘It sounds like you wanna connect with people, you don’t need a bar to do that,’ you say softly, carefully in case he might take offense to it, but he doesn’t, just shrugs.
‘I know, but… I still think it would be fun.’ His eyes meet yours again, and there’s something behind them as you look between them, something lonely that you haven’t seen in them before. You wonder then how long it’s been since he’s been here with someone, if his family still met up with him here, but based on his eyes you think you know the answer.
‘Well, if you do ever open that bar, then I expect free drinks for life as your first customer,’ you tease as you hold up your glass for a promising toast, and your faith in him makes his eyes look a little less lonely as he raises his own and taps the rims together. You drink as your waitress comes back with your food then, and it looks even better than the picture as you grab on tight and take a big bite. It’s the biggest burger you’ve ever eaten but it might also be the tastiest, the toppings sliding against your palms as you try to hold it all together, and you can see him having just as much trouble with his own. You laugh again and take another bite, your conversation moving onto more cheerful things as you eat, from family stories to complaints about work, bad dates to how your week was going, your overbearing but well-meaning mother to his absent father, but he isn’t as upset about it as he used to be as you sit with him and listen, he confesses.
You douse your half of the fries in ketchup as he dips his own in ranch, and he has more onion rings than you do before you realize it, and when your plates are empty and your glasses hold nothing but melting ice you finally look at your phone and realize you’ve been there for over an hour. ‘Shit, I need to get back,’ he panics as he stands, and you wave over your waitress as you both get out your wallets.
‘Hey, I got you covered, can you go start my car?’ you tell him as he searches for the card he wants to use, but he can’t accept that, even more so than the tip from last week. ‘I insist, this was a much better date than my last one,’ you say with a wink, and he fumbles his next words as you toss him your keys. He rushes out with flushed cheeks, and you instantly let your emotions show on your face as you mentally ask yourself why the hell you actually said that as you pay.
You run out as soon as you’re done and speed off back to the bar, the car quiet until you say your goodbyes, and you watch him go until he disappears through the double doors with a small wave.
It becomes a bit of a thing for you two as you meet up for lunch every Friday after that, with you trying something new at his recommendation each time, and after around 7 weeks of this he flashes you the biggest smile as you sit down at your usual table, Simon already seated and waiting. ‘What?’ you ask, his smile spreading to you, and he holds out his phone to show that he had an appointment with the bank on Monday. ‘Oh my god, are you-?’
‘I’m doing it.’ He’s practically bouncing in his seat, only stopping when he bangs his knee off the metal support and makes the table shake, his excitement so strong that you could probably start bouncing as well if you were to be completely honest with yourself.
‘That’s amazing! Do you need a ride? We can go together, it’s after your shift is done, right? Or should I pick you up at your place?’
‘I-’ His smile falters a bit but he pushes it aside, and it feels a little forced as it returns. ‘I’ve got a ride covered, but thank you. Maybe we can meet up at the bank when it’s over? I can text you, if you’d like.’
‘I’d love that, I’ll be sure to work extra hard so we can celebrate the night away.’
Everything goes quiet as you realize what you’ve said, since while you have been texting almost daily you still have yet to hang out outside of your lunch dates; you’re not even really sure if they could even be called that seeing as, apart from you calling the first time that as a joke, neither of you actually confirmed there was anything more than friendship going on between you. Still, you both take it seriously as your usual waitress approaches to take your orders, and neither of you bring it back up again after she leaves.
‘I’m really proud of you, Simon, this is a big step you’re taking,’ you do say to break the silence, and when he looks at you you can swear he’s about to cry again; it actually hurts in a physical way whenever you see that, and you curse whoever beat him down enough to have this be his default reaction whenever you give him any kind of compliment or praise.
‘I don’t think I could’ve done it if you hadn’t cheered me on, might’ve found more excuses to put it off.’ He looks so vulnerable in this moment, his hands clasped on the table in front of him, and you glance down at them and nearly reach out to grab one when he continues. ‘Actually, because of you, I kinda started paying attention to my old LoveMatch account, turns out I got some messages when I was offline.’
Your smile freezes on your face as you unexpectedly go cold, your reaction to his words catching you off guard as talking becomes hard. ‘That’s… that’s wonderful news, anyone catch your eye?’ you finally ask, and he goes pink as he shakes his head.
‘Not yet, I didn’t get many but I still wanna check them all out, see if maybe my soulmate is one of them. Wait, that’s kinda desperate, isn’t it? I don’t actually think my soulmate is on some random dating site but… it’s nice to imagine, right? It’s like you said, I- I just wanna connect with someone.’ He’s looking only at his phone as he talks, scrolling through the unopened messages still waiting for him, and it feels like you’re watching the conversation from afar as your ears start ringing, your hands shaking as you try to figure out why you’re feeling this way.
He’s cute, you can’t deny that, and you enjoy his company a lot, but you haven’t thought about an actual relationship with him until this moment, when it was made apparent to you that that wasn’t what he wanted. And now that he was considering someone else, picturing a life with someone else, you know that you wanted to be with him, not in a casual, Friday lunch date and daily chats kind of way, but in the way where you’d visit him on his off hours or you’d bring him to your place, where you could have a nice dinner, watch movies together, no more table between you as you curl up against him or have him lean against you. You could hold his hand, and he could tell you about how his day at the bar, his bar, went and about all the new people he met, and when he was done you could cup that enticingly strong jaw of his and angle his face up to yours.
‘Are you okay?’
You blink and your vision blurs, and you quickly sniff and search your pockets for your travel-sized bottle of emergency ibuprofen. ‘Yeah, yeah I’m good, allergies are just acting up again, gunna go blow my nose and take my meds real quick before this gets gross,’ you lie with a fake smile, making sure he can’t see the label before you run off, and he buys it completely before going back to his messages. You don’t let your facade crack until you’re safe in the bathroom, the weight of how much you had fallen for him without realizing making your knees buckle, and you lock yourself in one of the stalls as you desperately try to push down the fact that he would never feel the same.
You’d managed to keep it together as you finished your lunch get together - not date, never date - but you spend the rest of the weekend moping around your apartment after that, your eyes on your phone as you lay on the couch and watch some old favourites to cheer yourself up, but each time he leaves you a message you feel your heart ache and it always takes a while before you can answer back. You give him the excuse of being a bit behind on work so you can’t chat much, and he was fine with that because he was gathering up the courage to message a couple people back, see if there were any sparks, and you have to ignore your phone entirely as you bury your head in the couch pillow and yell.
Before you know it you’re waking up where you’d fallen asleep, the TV going through the night and the sunlight streaming through the wall of windows to the right of your couch, the brightness rousing you from your restless dreams. You reach limply for your phone but the battery died during the night, and you groan and stumble over to your desk so you can charge it. As soon as it comes back to life you see that it’s much later than you thought thanks to your alarm never going off, and you find a bunch of messages waiting for you.
‘Shit! Shitshitshit!’ you swear when you see that Simon had asked you to wish him luck before his meeting, and you’re already a half hour late to reply but you do anyway as you fully push aside all your feelings to wish him all the luck you possibly can. He doesn’t answer back, because he’s obviously in the meeting, and you end up too nervous about it to eat as you let your phone charge. Instead you skip straight to getting ready for the day, having a quick but much needed shower after your weekend-long mope session. As you dry your hair you then find something nice to wear that you secretly hope he might like, some part of you overcoming the misery to hope that if he’s ready enough for a relationship to use LoveMatch again then maybe you could have a chance, and that hope fuels you as you race back to your phone to see if he’s done yet.
you dont need to pick me up
taking a cab home
see you friday
Your hand reaches up to cover your mouth as dread fills you then, and you quickly call him, unplugging your phone so you can sit down. ‘Simon, where are you?’ you ask the moment he picks up, and all you hear is the sound of traffic before a small sniff is picked up by his phone’s mic.
‘Don’t come, I just wanna get home right now,’ he tries to tell you, but your body is moving when you hear his small voice, how broken he sounds, your keys in your hand and a pair of flipflops that definitely aren’t weather appropriate yet on your feet so you can be out the door faster.
‘Are you still at the bank? Which one is it, I’m heading out right now.’
‘Please…’
‘I’m already in my car, where am I going?’
The resulting silence to your insistence stretches on for so long that you’re about to just try every bank in town until you find him when he gives you the address, and you know the one exactly as you speed off towards it. You arrive about ten minutes later, and you’re scanning the area when you see him huddling from the wind in the alley, his hood up and people giving him cautious glances as they pass. You roll down your window and call out to him, and when he finds you through the gap you can’t help but let out a noise of pain when you see his face; he’s been crying, you hadn’t been able to see because of his hood, but now you can see that his cheeks are damp and his eyes are red, and you hurriedly unlock the passenger door and motion for him to come over.
He hesitates a moment before wiping his cheeks and jogging over, people bumping into him with how busy the street is, but he doesn’t do or say anything even as he gets a couple insults along the way. He opens the door, sits down, and as soon as you ask where he wants to go he hides his face in his hand and starts crying again. You reach out to touch his shoulder but he pulls away, he needs space, and you don’t try again as you drive back to your place.
‘I don’t know why I thought I could do this…’ he mutters to himself as you drive, and the lump in your own throat is so thick that it hurts as you try to swallow it down. You pull back into your parking lot and he finally notices that he doesn’t know this place, and you don’t shut off the engine as you turn back towards him.
‘You don’t have to tell me about it, but I’d like it if you came up with me, please,’ is all you say, and another tear rolls down his cheek before he’s nodding, following you to the front doors. Your place is pretty high up but the elevator ride isn’t awkward as he stuffs himself into the corner opposite of you, where you can’t see him as easily. You reach your floor before you know it so you lead the way to your apartment, and when the door opens and you set your keys back down on the small shelf nearby he takes everything in with an even sadder expression, which isn’t the way you were hoping it would go at all.
‘You- you have a nice home,’ he just says, and before you can thank him he’s already turning back for the door. ‘I shouldn’t have come up, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t talk to me anymore, I’ll leave you alone now-’
‘Whoa, wait, where did this come from?’ you need to know as you stand in front of the door, and he goes to move you aside before pulling back, he doesn’t even want to touch you. ‘Simon, I know I said you didn’t have to talk about it but- what happened in there? Why can’t I talk to you anymore?’
‘Because I’m-’ He flinches away from you as his voice rises, frustration apparent among the sadness, and he leans against the wall with a dull thud. ‘I was accepted into the police academy a few years back, before I got my job at the bar; I was training to be on the bomb squad, I thought my knack for technology could help save lives, and I practiced really hard, learned to disarm nonlethal devices I built myself to show them I could do it, that I could be useful to them.
‘But when they learned I’d been building things they thought I was doing it for the wrong reasons even though there was no danger to them, like I was going to learn how to build actual bombs next using the training I received; I was just learning how to cut the power without setting anything off, I was using fucking coloured lights to do it, there were no explosives on my devices at all! But it was enough to make them think I was a danger to everyone, and they forced me to take a psych exam which I then failed by their standards. I was kicked out of the academy, lost my job when the psych eval was sent to them the following week, even lost my apartment when my landlord got word of everything, this one mistake got me evicted in the middle of winter-!
‘And the guy I talked to today heard about it too, read about all of it when they researched me to see if I was deserving of it, do you know what I heard him say to his supervisor when he thought I was out of earshot? He- he called me “unstable,” and fucking “unqualified” when I told him how much I make a year, like he didn’t trust me to pay it back, like I was a failure before the bar even opened, and maybe he’s right, maybe I am a failure, I shouldn’t have tried, I shouldn’t have fucking tried-!’
He spins and punches the wall he was just leaning against and you tense up, your eyes shutting on instinct at the crash of his knuckles through the drywall; it’s the first time you’ve seen him angry like this and it scares you, but as he pulls his hand back and looks at his bloodied knuckles you feel no fear, just sadness.
‘I’m sorry, shit, I’m so sorry,’ he apologizes under his breath, hissing as he flexes his fingers, his hand shaking from the pain, and it would be so easy to end it all right there, kick him out too and never see him again after what he’s just told you, just done, but you can’t as you take him gently by the arm and lead him to your couch. You sit him down and go off to find your first aid kit, some big and overly full thing your mother made you buy when you first moved to the city, and you’re thankful for it now as you pull out the unsealed bottle of healing spray and spritz it against his torn skin a couple times.
For once you love the future as he heals, and while he’s fine now you can’t help but take out the gauze and wrap the area next just to make sure, your fingers resting over the fabric and the back of his hand as you hold him in place. ‘You’re not a failure,’ you murmur, and he tries to pull away again but you don’t let him. ‘What happened to you… it really, really fucking sucks, and none of it was fair, but… it doesn’t make you a failure, we can just try again until we find someone who can help you get that loan.’
‘I don’t even want it, not after today.’ There’s not a single trace of a lie in his words, he’s giving up, and you want so badly to hold him but you can’t. ‘It’ll just happen again, this black mark on my life will just keep following me, why even try?’
‘Because it’s your dream, remember? You told me you wanted to connect with people, no one should be able to take that from you.’ You’re moving closer to him, slotting yourself between his legs as your knees hit the bottom of the couch, he can’t run from you like this, but it’s like you’re invisible to him in his misery.
‘But they already did.’
You let go of his hand and get up, throwing your arms around his neck in a tight hug, and he lets out a sound somewhere between surprise and relief as he’s pressed into the couch; you’re practically in his lap like this, and you try to shift until you’re beside him instead, but your arms never leave him as you back up, your frown so deep it’s starting to make your head hurt. ‘They only will when you stop fighting for it, you haven’t lost it yet,’ you tell him in a hushed whisper, and something in him breaks as he crumbles into your hug, his head on your shoulder as he grips the back of your shirt as hard as he can, like he’s drowning at sea and you’re the only thing keeping him afloat.
You pet his hair comfortingly as he keeps talking into your shoulder about how it went, how he felt so worthless when he was rejected, how he tried to explain himself but it was all shut down, the man hadn’t even wanted to hear it because he’d heard enough, how he was so upset and hurt and angry that he was afraid of himself and what he’d do, and you just comfort him as he lets it all out. It takes a while but you never rush him, or interrupt him as he vents, you just keep holding him until he’s ready to let you go. You separate, and his eyes are so red as they avoid looking at you, but you just brush his bangs to the side before getting up and grabbing the tissues.
You hand him the box, and the smile he gives you isn’t as sad as he grabs a few, the lump in your throat easing up a bit at the sight. ‘I know you probably aren’t in the mood to celebrate, but if you just wanna grab some food and watch a movie anyway I could order something, or make something here? I think the Hotel might deliver this far, lemme see if it’s on Dumbwaiter.’ You’re already on your phone to check but he’s standing, his used tissues bunched in his hand as he looks for your garbage bin, his eyes on the ground again.
‘I’m not very hungry, thank you but I think I just wanna head home,’ he says after throwing them away, and your hand lowers as you take a step towards him, standing between him and the door again.
‘Please.’ You don’t mean for it to come out but it does, this is about him, not you, you have no right to ask him to stay when he needs space, but you can’t leave him like this, not now. Finally he meets your eye, and you can see that he wants to stay as badly as you want him to, and he opens his mouth to say something before he closes the gap, stands next to you and looks down at your phone. He taps your screen back to life and scrolls before he finds the Hotel’s real name in the list of places on Dumbwaiter’s delivery partnership, and he gives the name another tap before giving you the smallest smile, and it’s genuine and even less sad as his shoulder presses into yours.
‘Order the pasta today, all of their sauces are rich and they always serve too much, and get us the goat cheese spinach dip, it’s to die for,’ he says, his voice still wavering a bit after all his crying, and you just nod before adding it all to your cart, Simon taking off his shoes so he can get comfy on your couch properly this time. You pay for the meal and join him, offering him the remote but he has nothing he wants to watch, so you go to your favourites and pick the stupidest, funniest comedy you can find, needing something silly to lift the mood, and as the food is delivered and you both laugh with full mouths that almost get you to choke you end up wishing you could have this forever, that you could move to his side and hold him again.
You don’t, your phones on the coffee table along with your plates, the space between you feeling so much wider than it actually was as he stays with you until the sun sets.
Now that he’s been to your place your friendship only grows, your meetups changing from Friday lunches to properly hanging out, and it isn’t often he gets free time between his two jobs, but most nights of his are free and you’re always ready to drop whatever you can to see him when he asks. Because of your eagerness you’re slowly becoming a pro at keeping up with your own work, the need to procrastinate fading away like never before since being caught up meant you could go to him wherever he waited. You met him at both jobs, at the Hotel - which he got you to start saying as well since he never called it by its real name - and at the park, sometimes at the mall if there was something he needed to get and he wanted some company, but you’ve still never seen his place, and you’re starting to wonder where he lived.
You know it’s in town, since he got to and from work via Brougham and being outside of town would be hell on his paychecks, but you have no idea which part other than the fact that he used to live near the Hotel when he was a kid. You’ve tried asking before, but each time you do he just brushes it off, makes some excuse to why you couldn’t pick him up or drop him off there, and you’re starting to get a bit suspicious if you were entirely honest. You know he’s not homeless, he’s told you before how it took him a bit but he did manage to find someplace permanent and all his after his eviction, but this is getting ridiculous you think when he comes up with yet another excuse as to why you can drop him off on this random street you’re driving down, he lives nearby, he can walk the rest of the way.
‘Simon, you’ve got six bags of groceries in the back seat, it is literally impossible for you to walk home with them all,’ you say firmly as he just keeps looking out the window, and his lips purse as he tries something else.
‘It isn’t far and they’re not that heavy, I can do three per hand,’ he insists, and you step on the brakes in the middle of the road, no one coming or going as he jerks forwards in his seat at the inertia.
‘Why don’t you want me to see your place?’ you ask bluntly, no longer holding back, and he gets defensive, he’s more open with his anger around you now, but he hasn’t gotten as upset since that day, and you know it’s because he doesn’t want to lose control again, doesn’t want to scare you or himself like that again.
‘I never said I didn’t.’
‘You don’t need to; is it bad neighbours, or a bad neighbourhood? I don’t care where you live, or what your place looks like, I swear I don’t, so you don’t have to keep me away,’ you tell him honestly, and for a moment you think he might tell you when he unlocks his door and heads to the back. You just sigh as he gathers everything up in both hands and thanks you for the ride, but it really is close, you don’t have to waste gas going the rest of the day, he’ll see you Friday.
‘And… you don’t wanna know where I live,’ he mutters mostly to himself before the door closes, and he’s clearly weighed down by everything but he sticks with it, and you watch him just keep going further and further down the street until you have no choice but to take a U-turn and head home, and he’s still in your rearview as you hit a right and he’s forced to disappear around the corner behind you.
It’s a little awkward for you both after that, so you don’t bring it up again to make sure things even out, and it seems to help as you keep meeting up everywhere but his place, wherever the hell it is. He’s been to yours enough times now that you almost consider giving him a spare key so he can invite himself over, but it feels too personal for friends, and when you joke about it to test the waters he nearly spits out his drink in surprise. You clarify that it’s a joke as he sputters out that he’s never had someone’s spare key before, he’s never known anyone long enough for that.
‘You’ve known me for quite a few months now, maybe it might come in handle to have a spare out there in case of emergencies,’ you say next, instantly backtracking on the joke aspect of it with a little hope, and despite you initially calling it so he also looks a little hopeful at the possibility before his phone pings loudly. The moment is ruined as he stops your post-lunch walk through the park to see who’s messaging him, and his eyes widen as his smile grows and his face flushes. ‘LoveMatch, I assume?’ you ask, your teeth clenching in jealousy behind your smile.
‘Yeah, I’ve been messaging this one girl, Jeannie, a few days now,’ he tells you as he clicks in to see what she said, and his smile is so bright at her reply that you feel your stomach drop, your jealousy transforming into something that feels so much worse. ‘I think I’m gunna ask her on a date soon, when I can get an afternoon off so we don’t meet up too late, what do you think? Or should we talk a bit more first?’
The urge to tell him he should definitely talk more first arises because it’s true, you know what meeting too soon can do to a relationship before you can get a better feel for someone, but you also want them to meet before they’re ready; you want her to go in blind because you already know how to talk to him, know that there’s no way she’ll be able to get him out of his shell enough to consider a second date. You know he’ll be nervous, so he might say something weird like he did that first time you chatted over Facsimile, and if he does then there’s a good chance she might leave the date not wanting more.
You can’t do that though, you don’t want to see him rejected like that ever again after the loan, so you ball up your fist and give him a playful tap to the shoulder as he waits for your response. ‘Give it a little more time, get to know each other better, the perfect time for a date will show itself eventually, and if it doesn’t then maybe it’s just not meant to be,’ you suggest, and he nods before one-handedly typing out a reply back to her and putting his phone away.
‘You’re so good with this kinda stuff, I haven’t been on a real date before, it’s why I signed up for LoveMatch to begin with, so I never know where to start whenever I get a match,’ he confesses as you go back to walking, your fist still balled painfully as you hide it in your jacket pocket.
‘I’ve been on way too many bad dates by now, I’d like to think I’m a bit of an expert on it.’ Your laugh is strained but he doesn’t seem to notice as he looks straight ahead, his cheeks still pink now that she’s on his mind.
‘I can’t wait to meet her, she works at a flower shop nearby but I haven’t been in yet, I don’t wanna creep her out or anything,’ he says as his shyness crops up again, his expression cute until you remember this isn’t for you, it’s for her.
‘Just keep talking to her and it’ll happen, and who knows? Maybe she’ll like you as mu-’ You stop yourself from saying, ‘as much as I do,’ the words unable to come out as he turns to face you with a curious expression. ‘As much as I know she will,’ you finish, and he grins at the ground before taking another drink, your shoulders bumping for just a moment before he steps to the left to give you a bit more space, and you have to grip the inside of your pocket to keep from pulling him back to you.
About a week later he messages you as you’re working, your phone lighting up and buzzing energetically near your hand, and when you open the chat he tells you that she asked him on a date. Your face falls as you force a smile he can’t see, your thumbs typing him a congrats you don’t mean, not entirely, and when he says that he’s going to take her to the park you feel almost betrayed; you know it’s not your park, it’s just someplace you visit sometimes, it wasn’t like he was bringing her to the Hotel for lunch, that would hurt so much worse.
He then says he’s been thinking about packing a picnic since it felt more romantic, and that he was going to bring roses in her favourite colours since she told him she couldn’t decide between red or orange when they were talking about it, and you almost put down your phone as your chest aches. You want it to be you, you want him to ask you to the park for a picnic, you want to be able to pack your own favourites to share with him there now that the weather is nice again, you want him to bring you roses in your favourite colours even though you’re not even that much of a flower person just because they’re from him and he’s thinking of you.
You want to be her.
You tell him that that sounds like a great idea, she’ll love it, he should tell you how it goes afterwards if he wants to, which he does, since you’re his friend.
You’re his friend.
You send him a bunch of fingers crossed emojis and get back to work so he can start planning, the date is this weekend after all and he has things he has to do now, and when you go to bed that night your thumb hovers over the Sign Up button on LoveMatch’s mobile app until you fall asleep.
Three days later you find yourself lurking outside of the park even though you fought all morning not to, not knowing the exact time they were going to meet up and spending every second continuing that fight as you tell yourself to leave before you got hurt even more. You parked a block away so he wouldn’t recognize your car, and you’re wearing one of your thicker hoodies that you prefer to save for colder weather even though it’s making you sweat like crazy, the hood up as you walk around and see if you can find him. You’ve been there for hours now when you finally decide to go, this was stupid and petty and way too jealous to be acceptable no matter how you felt for him, and just as you’re about to leave you hear his voice echo faintly across the open area.
You look over and see him approach an unfamiliar woman, Jeannie, a big bouquet of roses in his hand and his Brougham waiting for him with an open door by the curb where he was dropped off at. He waves nervously at her, and she flashes him a big smile as he hands her the roses, she seems happy about them, and they chat for a little bit as you get a good vantage point behind a nearby tree. There’s people looking at you as they pass but you don’t care, you can’t leave now, and your jealousy turns to shocked offense as you watch her expression slowly fall.
She’s uncomfortable, he’s said something that she didn’t like just like you’d feared, and he picks up on it and motions for her to wait before he jogs back to the car, he’s still going to try and fix it with the picnic. The moment he’s away from her she puts the roses down on the bench they’re standing by and bails, her footsteps fast as she puts as much distance between them before his return, and your body moves on its own as you want to chase her down, demand to know why she did that. You lose her as you hear him come back to the bench, his voice calling out to her again but she’s long gone, and you freeze with your back to him as you hear him set down the basket, his car already driving off and stranding him there.
The lump is already forming in your throat again when you hear your phone go off, and when you pick up and turn to face him he’s already looking at you, having heard the ringtone you’d assigned to him from your short distance away. He looks hurt at your presence at first, then upset, then angry, and he leaves both the roses and the basket behind as he starts to walk away.
‘Simon, wait,’ you call out to him as you race after him, his long legs carrying him farther and faster as you quickly catch up, but you being there is just insult to injury and he does not want you to be there for him today.
‘You saw it all, didn’t you?’ he demands as he just keeps walking with no destination, needing to get away from you and his heartbreak as fast as he can, and you try to walk backwards in front of him but you can’t keep the pace, not when he keeps changing directions every time you catch up.
‘I’m sorry, I wanted to make sure it went okay,’ you confess before you can come up with yet another lie, and he scoffs at it bitterly.
‘Wanted to make sure I didn’t fuck it up like the loan, right? Well, sorry to break it to you, but I fucked it up again, I’m just one big fuckup!’ He takes another sharp turn to try and lose you in a dense crowd but you grab onto him, use him like an anchor as he tries to jerk away enough to make you let go, but your grip is strong and true as not even that works.
‘You aren’t a fuckup!’ you insist desperately in a too loud voice for being in public, a group of mothers with strollers giving you the dirtiest look at your language, but you just give them a ‘give me a break’ look back before turning your attention back to him. ‘She just doesn’t know you yet, what did you say? Maybe you can still fix it? Or you could try one of your other matches? She isn’t the only one out there, you don’t need her!’
‘I told her that I wanted to meet her at work,’ he says, and that’s not so bad until he explains why it upset her. ‘I told her that I saw her place of work in the trashed data and I wanted to surprise her by ordering the roses from her, and she didn’t like it.’
Yeah, that’ll do it.
‘She- she didn’t get that you weren’t looking her up to doxx her or stalk her or anything?’ you hurriedly ask, and he just shakes his head, his pace slowing as you exit the main road and head down a less busy street, somewhere more private, probably unintentionally on his part.
‘No, I tried to explain that but her expression said it all, and when I got back…’ He slows even more, you both know how it ended and his lip is quivering. ‘She didn’t even have to guts to say goodbye, she just wanted to leave me there like I could be thrown out like the roses, like trash, that fucking bitch!’ He kicks the trashcan you’re about to pass and it crashes hard to the ground, the contents spilling all over the sidewalk as he loses control of his anger again. ‘I’m a person, goddamnit, why does this keep…’
You step around the trash as the wind blows it into your path, creating a river between the two of you that you cross to get to him, and this time when you try to hug him he steps back, puts a hand up to keep you away.
‘Don’t, just- don’t, I can’t be touched by you right now,’ he says softly, and he isn’t crying but he looks about to as you obediently back up, the trash spreading around you and making the river swell. ‘I’m going home, I’m sorry you keep having to deal with me.’
You try to tell him otherwise but he isn’t listening as he pulls up his hood and heads back to the main road, a cab hailed before he gets in and drives away, leaves you there alone. You lower your own hood and unzip your hoodie so your body can cool a little as you walk back to your car, and when you reach the bench you see that there’s a small group of concerned people gathering around the basket, all of them clearly thinking that it might be something dangerous.
‘That’s mine, sorry, it’s just a picnic,’ you say as you approach it, and everyone can’t help but peer inside as you prove it to them. In that quick glimpse you can see that he worked hard on the contents within, he made a whole bunch and even grabbed a few different drinks as well as a bottle of wine to split, and you swallow as you relatch the lid and grab the handle. The roses are still there too and you pick them up, they’re the synthetic kind you can tell as their scent is muted compared to the real thing, he wanted her to keep them for a while without them dying, and you hold them close to your chest as you finish the trek to your car.
You don’t look at the items in your passenger seat until you get home, and when you reach your apartment you put the flowers in a waterless vase and spread out the picnic on your coffee table. You choose your favourite drink, of course he would’ve brought it out of all the possible options, and open up the wine as well as you enjoy the picnic by yourself, not wanting to let it go to waste as you try not to notice how large your couch was without him there to enjoy it with you.
He ignores your messages for a while after that, so you stop texting him to give him some space, but that doesn’t stop you from at least typing everything out and deleting it before the temptation to press send overtakes you. You look him up on LoveMatch and see that he’s offline, and after looking up Jeannie’s name you discover a recent post she made in the site’s forums section; you click in and see that she completely tried to ruin his reputation on the site, warning others to stay away from him, calling him creepy and a stalker and claiming that he would doxx any matches. Your heart races as the comments join in, insulting his picture and saying he looked like a creep, how some said they had messaged him but now they were going to block, thanking her for the warning and telling her how sorry they were for having to deal with that.
You nearly come to his rescue but there’s no point, they’ve already made up their minds, and you instead flag the post as harassment and pray that it got taken down before he saw it.
He’s seen it.
He sends you the link without another word, your request to remove it denied, and when you look for his profile you find it gone.
He misses your next Friday lunch, and you figure enough is enough as you decide that if he wasn’t going to talk to you then you were going to talk to him. You wait until he gets off work before parking across from the bar, and you keep your distance as he hails a ride and heads home for the night. Your hands are gripping the wheel way too hard the entire way there, and when the car turns into a large, mostly empty lot sans a bunch of trailers parked inside as well as a few storage containers and miscellaneous vehicles and construction things for the building across the street you just keep going and pretend like you weren’t just following him. You wait until his ride leaves as you park nearby, and you casually walk up to the one you saw him heading for and hope that he won’t kick you out immediately as you knock on the door.
There’s the sound of stumbling from inside until the door opens and you step out of its way, Simon just looking at you before a cacophony of emotions plays across his face. ‘Hey,’ you say when he doesn’t shut the door right away, ‘you stopped answering my messages, I wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘So you followed me?’ He’s more surprised than angry, which is good, but you don’t know how long it’ll last so you talk fast, needing to get it out while you have the chance.
‘You never told me where you lived, I improvised, I’m not the one with access to trashed data here,’ you try to joke, but neither of you laugh as you just stand there on his makeshift porch, which is just big enough to hold a single lawn chair and nothing else, another sign of his isolation.
‘I never wanted you to come here,’ he mutters just quietly enough that you almost miss it, and when you lean in to listen his expression hardens. ‘Your place is so nice, you’ve got a nice view, everything is so open, you do so well for yourself. But me, even with two jobs this is all I can afford, I can’t save up for my bar when I have bills to pay, can’t get a loan because I can’t pay it off if it fails, you’ve got everything so put together and I’m-’ He stops, he’s been looking at the ground the entire time but when he falls silent he makes a point to purposefully not look at you, and you can see the shine in his eyes as he shifts from foot to foot, resists slamming the door in your face. ‘I’m a fucking loser.’
‘You’re not-’
‘I got kicked out of the academy, I got evicted, I got denied for my loan, I got dumped before my date even started and now every other match I made has me blocked, I live in a fucking trailer because I can’t afford rent in the city anymore and it’s cheap to live out this far, how am I not a loser?’ He quiets down when he starts yelling out all the reasons why he was worthless, his voice echoing over the lot, and he tries to shut the door when your hand shoots out and holds it open the second you see it move. ‘I just- I don’t understand why you keep talking to me after all that, why do you keep coming back? Why haven’t you left like everyone else? Why won’t you just- leave me alone…?’
You swallow and walk up the two-step stairs, Simon backing up until you let yourself in, the door shutting behind you and trapping your voices inside so they can’t carry anymore. ‘Because none of that defines you, it happened to you but that isn’t who you are,’ you tell him, and he’s hunched over now that he’s inside, the ceiling not high enough to accommodate him in his own home.
‘And who am I?’ he asked pathetically, but you don’t see him as pathetic, not even now as you see his home and how bare it is, the nicest thing he owns his computer over by the far window, the setup grand and expensive looking, and you fondly think to yourself that he probably built it all himself.
‘You’re smart, you’re so fucking smart, and you’re easy to talk to, and you’re a bit weird sometimes, and you word things kinda badly at the worst of times but you’re not a creep, and you’re passionate about what you want and it’s so unfair that no one’s given you a proper chance, or gotten to know the real you, not just what they’ve heard and assumed about you. You’re not a bad guy, you’re more than your black marks, you’re Simon.’
He blinks and a tear falls from his eye to the floor thanks to the angle his neck is forced to be, but he never sits even though it must be hurting him, and you wonder if maybe you’ve gotten through to him when he catches you completely off guard with what he says next: ‘Would you still think that if you knew the real me?’
‘What do you mean?’ You’ve known him for half a year now, there wasn’t any side of him you hadn’t seen yet, but apparently there was as another tear falls.
‘I killed someone, about five years ago now.’
You stagger back into the door, the wind knocked out of you at this revelation, and he shuts his eyes and looks away from your expression as one of pain takes over his own face. ‘What are you talking about?’ you ask quietly, your voice failing you the first time you try, and he flinches at your words like you’d just screamed them in his face.
‘Back when I was evicted I was looking for people to room with, just temporarily until I could get back on my feet, and this guy had answered my ad, invited me over to check out his place. I should’ve been more cautious but it was so cold I couldn’t wait, and when I got there he tried to mug me, take whatever I had left. I fought back in self-defense, but when I almost got away he started attacking me, wanted to keep me there until his actual roommate got home so he had help, and I-’ He sits down then, his hands shaking as he goes back to that time, and your back leaves the door as he looks up at you with such sadness that your chest feels hollow. ‘He tried to kill me, I was only trying to defend myself, I didn’t mean to hurt him so bad, I just wanted to find somewhere to stay, it was so cold outside…’
‘What happened after that?’ You think you might’ve just mouthed the words with how much your voice breaks, but he understands you anyways.
‘The roommate came home while I- while it was happening, called the cops, and when they saw me standing there covered in blood, holding the knife still, they instantly ruled it as a homicide and arrested me. I was able to plead not guilty but they took one look at my bad psych eval and thought I’d snapped, killed him outta malice or something, it was only by a miracle that the evidence was in my favour.’
‘And the roommate?’
‘They searched the place and found evidence of all the others before me that’d fallen for the con, he was charged and arrested and I made bail, but after that my mother never talked to me again, even though I was acquitted.’ It looks like a weight’s been lifted now that he’s said it, but he also looks so fucking tired, most of him taking up his small loveseat couch. You want to go to him but you can’t move, your body refusing to shift even an inch in case he didn’t want you to, and he looks you over before something in his eyes begs you please; you let out a small noise as you fall to the ground between his knees, your hand holding his just like you had when you’d wrapped him up.
‘Why are you still here? Why haven’t you thrown me out yet?’ he weakly asks you, and you can’t lie to him any longer as you hold his hand up to your cheek.
‘Don’t you know what you mean to me?’ you need to know, your voice so small that again you’re not even sure if any of it even comes out, and he lets out a breath that sounds so desperate and broken it makes you wonder just how long he’s been holding it: days, weeks, months, since the moment you met?
‘I didn’t want to hope- you… you’re my only friend, I didn’t want to ruin everything and lose you too,’ he whispers as he properly holds you, his palm so warm against your skin, and you lean into his touch as you let out the breath you were holding in return.
‘You almost broke my heart when you said you went back to LoveMatch, I wanted to tell you so badly,’ you’re finally able to confess, and when you do his other hand finds your arm, holds you with just enough pressure that you know he wants you there.
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t want to ruin everything either.’
He leans forward until his forehead rests against yours, and when you open your eyes and look into his you can see everything you ever wanted again, all of it feeling so real and within reach as you brush his bangs aside, rest your hand on the back of his neck. His other hand comes up to cup your other cheek, and he’s shaking slightly like he’s afraid to touch you even though he already is because this time it’d be his decision to, his lips parting as he stares down at your own, and when he touches you you lean up and close the space between you.
He sighs against your mouth as you kiss him, it so full of relief and contentment and joy, and you wrap your arms around his neck again as you successfully sit in his lap this time. His lack of experience is apparent but you have no complaints as you deepen the kiss, needing more now that you could have it, and he lets you have everything you ever wanted as he leans back against the cushions until his head hits the metal wall behind him. He mutters an ow as he lets go of you to rub his head, and you laugh before catching his mouth again, which he eagerly allows you to do; he eats up all your attention, starving for it as he gets more into it, needing whatever you can give after so many rejections, and you’re happy to give it all back as you kiss his neck.
‘I was so proud of you when you told me you were trying for the loan, I really wanted to celebrate with you,’ you whisper into his skin, and you can feel him shiver as he lets out a soft moan and tilts his head to the side so you have easier access. ‘You’ve been trying so hard, please let me reward you, I want to be the first to…’
He moans your name as his hips start to move, try to find friction against you, and you shift until he does, his jaw going slack as he holds you by your thighs, perfects the angle even more.
‘When I saw you with her I wanted it to be me, I hated myself for wanting her to go, but she didn’t deserve you, I’ll never leave, and I want the next time we meet to be a real date, whether it’s at the Hotel or the park or my place or here, I want to be with you.’
He makes a noise of pure want, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tries to swallow back the sob that follows, he was always weak to your compliments but you need him to know how worth it he is to you, how much he deserves this after everything he’s been through.
‘You’re wonderful, I love spending time with you, you’re everything I want.’
A tear escapes between his tightly shut eyelids and you kiss it away before going to his jaw, pressing your lips along it before you find his mouth again.
‘I really like you, Simon, you mean so much to me, I’m so glad I got to meet you.’
He’s practically whimpering in your lap as he cries harder, his hips never stopping, he needs this so much but so do you, and you let him use you as the growing pressure wrenches a moan from your lips.
‘I love-’
You don’t get to finish as he comes apart underneath you, his body shuddering as he grips you tight and gasps out a series of choked out moans, your eyes fluttering shut as you feel it all travel from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. You feel the heat between your thighs as he slowly catches his breath, his cheeks turning red under streams of tears in embarrassment for coming from just this much, but you just kiss the tip of his nose and rest your chest against his, let him feel how hard your heart was beating.
‘I love you,’ you whisper now that you can, and he looks at you like you’ve just given him the sun and the moon on a golden platter.
‘I’m so glad I texted you back then,’ he confesses against your cheek, his hands leaving your thighs to rest on your back, keeping you close, ‘I think I started to love you the moment you wanted to actually talk to me.’
‘Lucky for me your standards are so low,’ you joke, but it falls flat in the best of ways as he nuzzles into your neck.
‘It was all I needed, I just wanted someone to believe in me.’ He presses a single kiss to the space where your neck meets your shoulder, and your nails scrape lightly against his scalp as you let out a sigh at the feeling.
‘I told you, I’ll keep cheering you on until it works,’ you remind him, and he sits up straight so he can hold you even closer in his hug, your bodies fitting together perfectly as you hold him back and don’t let go.
The snow is falling lightly outside as you stretch in your chair, your back cracking as you raise your arms high above your head. You’re all done for the day, everything on your list checked off as you glance at the time and see that it’s almost 8PM, he’ll be there soon. You stand and bring the feeling back to your legs before grabbing the remote and turning on the TV, queuing up the next episode of the show you’re marathoning only one at a time each night. You let the recap and intro play and then press pause, it’s nearly time now, and you’re in the middle of grabbing the plates and utensils when you hear a knock at the door. You unlock it and open up to reveal Simon on the other side, all bound up in a large winter jacket, his scarf pulled up high enough to cover his nose and mouth from the cold.
‘You forget your key at work again?’ you tease as he walks in, trailing snow over to the mat where he can take his boots off.
‘Kinda hard to unlock the door with both hands full,’ he points out with a smirk as he then sets the food brought from said work on the table. ‘It’s busy tonight despite the snow, lots of people coming in to escape the chill, had to order these early to make sure they were done on time.’
‘You know I can always make something before you get back, you don’t have to keep bothering Elison over it,’ you remind him, but he won’t hear of it, he loves being able to bring you back something so you don’t have to stop working until you’re ready and you know it.
‘I convinced him to leave the Hotel to come work for me, might as well use him,’ is what he has to say to that, and you can’t argue with it as you both transfer your dinners onto the plates you set out. ‘Besides, it’s the only way I can get my favourites without having to drive across town, that’s a good enough reason to keep bothering him.’
You hum in agreement as you sit down together, the episode playing as soon as you’re settled, and when you’re done eating he curls up next to you, rests his head against your shoulder even though it hurts his neck. You take pity on him and adjust so he can lay more properly, his face still red from the winter chill, and you find yourself paying more attention to him until he feels your eyes on him.
‘You think we can do two episodes tonight before you go back? We’re so close to the season finale,’ you plead in that tone of voice that always gets him, and he looks like he really wants to say yes but he can’t, he doesn’t like leaving the place for so long as is even though his staff is more than capable of watching over things for an hour without him; outside of the weekend it’s the only time you can be together until he gets home at 2AM, when you’re already asleep most nights, and before he leaves again by 9AM, at least until the new year where he plans on hiring more staff if things keep getting better.
‘Not tonight, maybe tomorrow if it’ll calm down when the storm hits, I’ll call it early if it’s bad enough,’ he promises, and you smile and hold his hand as you rewind the episode back to before you stopped watching.
‘Should I be so jealous of a bar?’ you ask rhetorically, and he answers you yes before you playfully hit him and press play again. ‘Maybe I should start working for you part-time, I miss our Friday lunches, you’re too busy for me now.’
‘I’m never too busy for you,’ he reassures you so gently and genuinely before kissing you, the scene you just rewound to getting ignored again as you don’t let him go after just one. ‘I wouldn’t mind having you there, though, even if I think we might not get a lot done whenever you’re there.’
‘I’m just trying to make some C0NN3CT10N$,’ you say as slowly and as slyly as you can, drawing out the word as he just stares at you, ‘y’know like the bar’s na-’
He silences you with another kiss, this one a little more chaste as he laughs against your lips. ‘Yeah, yeah I know,’ he chuckles, and once again the episode is rewound so you can watch it, your arms around him for the rest of the hour he sets aside just for you each night, and in your head you make a mental note to thank your mother for recommending that son of a friend of a friend of a co-worker 10 months too late as he lovingly holds you right back.
