(get ready for some sort of a fic influx in bulk today on my blog. playing catchup)
Characters: Arthur Fleck, Reader
You sat yourself rather roughly onto the couch beside Arthur. You finished your day at work, teaching. And you were on your feet literally all day today. You breaked for 20 minutes for a quick lunch before you had to do some extra prepping for your next day’s classes. And now you just put dinner in the oven, and you had another 15 minutes of rest.
“God,” you groaned softly, pinching the bridge of your nose as you laid back against the armrest of the couch.
“Long day?” Arthur asked in his soft voice.
You opened your eyes and looked at him across the couch. You had barely said hello to him by the time you got home and started cooking dinner. You hadn’t even asked about his day. What a bitch.
“Yeah. 7:30am to 4:30pm on my feet. Got to sit down for lunch and like maybe one second when the kids were doing independent reading,” you ran your fingers through your hair, “How was your day, Art?”
“Went fine. Did a birthday party today.”
“Aww,” you smiled softly and then looked out the window, “Pretty shitty weather for a birthday party. Did the kids enjoy?”
“It was inside a house so the rain didn’t affect anything. And yeah, I think they did.”
You and Arthur just smiled very subtly at each other.
Arthur then reached down and tugged at your ankle. You rose a brow, “What’re you doing?”
“You said you were on your feet all day. They must hurt,” and he pulled your one foot onto his lap, and you followed voluntarily with the other foot, getting comfortable on the couch.
“You don’t have to do this, Arthur.”
“Well, you have...” Arthur leaned back and craned his neck to look into the kitchen, “... 12 minutes until the oven goes off. That’s plenty of time to relax.”
God, you loved this man. But he also made you feel guilty a lot of the time because you wondered if you were giving Arthur as much love as he always gave you.
Arthur had started to press his thumbs into the arches of your socked feet and your leg twitched only once at the sudden touches. But then you leaned your head back and shut your eyes, reveling in the feeling of a rarely ever gotten foot massage.
It was clear that Arthur barely knew how to conduct a foot massage, either. The both of you were so similar in your lack of pleasure-based experiences, it was almost comical. He would squeeze up your feet in an untried way, not garnering all the possible great feelings he could have if he knew better. But there was intent in his screwed up face and love in his eyes.
“Wohoah!” you suddenly shot up when Arthur dragged his thumb across the ball of your foot, definitely not intentionally. He was just shifting positions.
“Sorry,” Arthur gave that innocent smile again and now he was smiling bigger, clearly amused.
“No, it’s okay,” you didn’t want him to feel bad but then you saw his not-sorry face and you narrowed your eyes, “Yeah, you should be sorry,” you changed your tune when you noted the mischief in Arthur’s persona.
The clown rose a brow and now even more intentionally wiggled two fingers on your arch as his grip tightened on your ankle. You yanked your free foot away but the other was still withheld from you.
He peeked at the time on the oven again, “Only got about five more minutes of relaxation. Better enjoy it.”
You twisted and turned in Arthur’s iron grip and laughed. He loved your laugh and he worked his hardest to hear it.
The way he scratched endlessly at this one spot right under the ball of your foot at the beginning of the arch sent you screaming and kicking at him with your free foot. But that was a bad idea because he nabbed the other foot and held them both in a headlock.
“Plehehease, Arthur, oho my god,” you snorted when he poked under your toes.
“Are you alright?” Arthur asked and if one wasn’t looking right at his face, they would’ve thought he was asking genuinely. But that smirk betrayed him.
“You should’ve warned me you were this ticklish.”
“You already know I’m ticklish--ah!” you thrashed when he started sliding your sock up, one finger now sliding up your bared sole.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know your feet were this bad.”
“NohohoHO nononono... ARTHuuur!” you whined again and slid down practically off the couch.
“Coochie coo,” he muttered, but it was loud and gleeful enough for you to hear it and you turned beet red.
Suddenly, the oven timer went off and Arthur stopped his attack.
“Lehet go,” you giggled and wiped tears from your eyes.
Arthur turned to look back at you and he beamed. You were half off the couch, disheveled, and utterly beautiful. He let go of your ankles and reached over to hoist you back up onto the couch.
“I’m gonna kill you,” you breathed once you got your senses back, able to growl a little at Arthur.
“Yes, over that. That was an assault,” you leaned forward and cupped his chin in your hand, forcing him to look at you. You kissed him and you were both smiling when the kiss broke. The oven beeped again.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” you grumbled as you hopped off the couch. You pulled one of your socks the rest of the way off, balled it up, and chucked it at Arthur for good measure.
Now you laughed in triumph and Arthur stood up to slunk behind you. Oh boy. This dinner was going to get burnt.
