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another-miracle · 6 months ago

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JEN.

YOU HAVE OUTDONE YOURSELF.

I HAVE REREAD THIS AT TLEAST THREE TIMES.

I HAVE NOTES.

OH MY GOSH.

Be Here With Me

[Read on AO3]

Written for @another-miracle, who longed for some good old WFB Established Obiyuki, and asked if I had any particular plans for when Obi finds out about that kiss he missed...:3c

There’s been more than a few first these past few days— Doc’s first time, of course, and her first second time, followed a few more hours (and a couple more interesting firsts) later by the first not-sick sick day she’s taken since she faked a fever to finish the last Warrior Cats book at age ten (the original series, she informs him precisely, I didn’t know there were more until I returned it to the library and there were two more on the shelf)— but Obi has to admit, this is the first time he’s walked into a sit-down dining experience before noon. Well, sober, at least.

Woulda been nice if it was something fancier than just the diner off campus, more accustomed to collapsed college freshmen and four am walks of shame than actual able-bodied academics playing hooky. Not that they particularly look it; he’s managed to get on a pair of jeans— under extreme duress, and only after a particularly daring set of thumbs made some pretty promising forays beneath his waistband— but Doc’s swallowed whole by his hoodie, hiding a set of pajama shorts that stop too far up her thighs for his neurons to fire right. The whole walk here, he’s been trailing behind, engaging in the sort of speculation that reminds him he knows just how far down Doc’s blush can go. Not participating in any higher level thought, that’s for sure.

“Oh good.” He settles into the booth— across from Doc, like a good boy; the kind that knows they’ll have more than just making the best of a morning to put their best foot forward— vinyl squealing under his weight. Last thing he needs is to let his wandering hands get them into trouble, not when all it takes to get those unshakable morals of hers to start trembling at the knee is a kiss behind her ear. “Couldn’t remember if this place had pictures on their menu or not.”

It’s wicked, the way that mouth of hers curls; like she doesn’t know for a fact that a little mischief will get him going all over again. And yet, when her own eyes glance up over the menu, bright and wide and far too green, there’s concern there too. “If you’re that tired, we could have slept in a little more.”

There she goes again with all the we stuff. And sleeping. Practically implying beds. All in the same sentence. Holding a bone in front of a hungry dog, that’s what she’s doing.

“Not tired, Doc.” How could he be, when he’s got more than eight whole hours the past two nights, dead to the world while she was tucked into his arms? “Jaw just aches. You know, from all the hard work I’ve been doing lately.”

He doesn’t need to add the wink, not when she’s already pink all the way from the zipper of his hoodie to the arch of her hairline, but he does anyway, grinning as she ducks behind her menu.

“Do you know what you’re going to get?” she asks, just a little too loud, the tips of her ear burning pink where they peek out from her ponytail. “The parfait looks good to me! I wonder if they make their own granola, or…?”

She runs out of steam, unable to imagine a world where someone with an industrial kitchen would buy kashi wholesale instead of making the house smell like burnt cereal at eight am. “I think you’ll be lucky if there’s real fruit at the bottom and not just Danimals scooped into a glass. Their usual crowd doesn’t really care about where the food comes from, just as long as they can get it in their mouth.”

Doc swivels in her seat, surveying their fellow diners— retirees, mostly, in groups of two or three, or sometimes a solitary man with his paper— and frowns. “I don’t know if that’s very nice to say…”

“I meant the drunk kids, not the geriatrics. You don’t make bank off of grandpas buying a coffee and an egg, over easy.” No, they’re looking for the stoners who shell out for a whole cheesecake, or the post-club crowd looking to soak up all the Bicardi they’ve drowned themselves in. “Dunno why you’re bothering with your bird food when your body’s got to be dying for carbs. Gotta replenish all those calories you’ve burned going hard like that for the last— what, thirty-six—?”

“Obi!” Her hands clap to her cheeks, blushing right down to her palms, and haah, what was he thinking, letting her sit all the way across the tabletop, right where he can’t press his lips to her neck and really make her squeak. “We’re— there’s people—”

“Don’t worry, Doc, I’ll behave.” Badly, maybe, but hey, that’s a type of behavior, isn’t it? “As for me, I’m getting whatever sounds like it’s describing the Big Guy. You know, Lumberjack’s Best Breakfast, or Hungry Man’s Brunch Special, or Eight Inches of Sausage—”

“I get it!” she yelps, holding up her hands, like somehow a show of surrender would slow him down, let alone stop him. But he gives her the satisfaction this time, snatching up one of her hands and kissing it soundly across the knuckles. “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” he hums, letting his tongue flick out between her fingers before she snatches it away. She can scowl all she likes, but it’s no good— he can see the smile she’s hiding too, sneaking around at the corners of her mouth. “I think it’s one of my best traits.”

“Hey there, friends, y’all ready to order?”

Doc nearly jumps out of her skin, glancing up at the server like she'd been caught with her hand caught in the cookie jar. “Ah…um…I think so.”

The woman smiles, too knowing as she darts her eyes between them— and thankfully, too subtle for Shirayuki. “What can I get you two?”

“Oh, well, hm.” She frowns down at the menu, the wrinkle between her eyebrows just begging to be kissed. “The pancakes do sound good, but…”

For all her waffling over potential breakfast options— the server had barely turned her back before she started in with those forest nymph fueled seconds thoughts; maybe I should have asked for yogurt on the side, or do you think there was a whole wheat option? Fiber is important for gastrointestinal health, Obi— Doc wastes no time in packing away the pancakes, all of her bird-like appetite gone north for the summer.

He should be chowing down on his own breakfast— god knows he could use the calories, the way they’ve been going at it. The way they’ll still be going at it, if he gets his way, once they top off. And it’s not like he isn’t eating— there’s a perfect strip of bacon pinched between his fingers, nearly chomped down to the knuckle, and he’s already got his next victim picked out from the plate they’ve crowded next to his other two— it’s just that he can’t bear to take his eyes off her, can’t even let himself blink in case this all turns out to be a dream. Because this can’t be his life, right? Sitting across from Doc, half-naked under his hoodie, the memory of her soft and squirming under him— and over him, and curled against his chest— still fresh in his mind.

There’s a pause for juice between pancake one and two, and Doc lets her eyes flicker up over the rim, searching for him with the ease of habit— god, how many times has she done that and he’s been too stupid to notice? Doesn’t matter, not when their eyes meet, that endless green nearly swallowing him whole, taking the breath right out of his lungs— before it skitters away, leaving only the faintest hint of pink behind. The only proof that anything happened at all, and haah, he’s definitely missed that before. Caught only the blush and thought it was exertion, or nerves, or a hundred other things that weren’t about climbing him.

But he knows different now. Knows that when he had her pressed up against the wall after exams, she’d wanted him to close that space too. Knows that when they shared that bed at conference, she’d been dying for him to try something, anything just to have a reason to jump his bones. That she’d sat in a booth for two whole hours with Bob and Gayle, thinking about about how much she wanted him. Not just his mouth on her, introducing her to a whole new spectrum of color, but this. The idea of just being able to reach out and know he’d reach back. That she belonged somewhere. With him.

His hand claps over his mouth, real casual, hiding his grin. As if that’d ever been a question. She had him at, go hug a tree.

“Are you okay, Obi?” Doc’s eyes aren’t skittering away now; no they’re fixed dead on him, dropping only to take in his meager contributions to his meal, before bobbing back up with even more concern. “You’ve barely touched your breakfast.”

“What, me?” He shakes his head, hoping it might clear it, just a little. Enough to actually hold a conversation, instead of just staring dreamily at her, ridiculously down bad. “Nah, nah, don’t worry about me, Doc. Just got distracted.”

That smooth brow of hers furrows, begging for him to press his mouth to it. “Distracted?”

Haah, busted. “It’s nothing, really. Just thinking that this wasn’t really how I saw our first date going.”

Her eyelashes flutter, not coy but confused, and god, why the hell did he think sitting across from her was a good idea again? He can’t even kiss her from here. “Really?”

“Yeah, I really thought it’d be somewhere nice. One of those really bougie places where you gotta dress up all nice. No ripped jeans and hoodies, you know? Really try to impress you.” His mouth slants before he can catch it, flashing teeth. “After all, you’re used to the finer things now, aren’t you?”

“Hah, no, I really”—her hand snakes out, slipping under where his sprawls across the table, so warm compared to the formica— “I really like this. Just being with you. I don’t need all the other stuff.”

How’s he supposed to eat if his mouth’s gonna go dry on him like this? “But the other stuff is nice right? That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it? Something special.”

“It’s special whenever you’re with me. I don’t need all the other stuff. Really. I”— she flushes guiltily, fingers flexing around his— “I always thought all those garden parties and art museums and galas and stuff were kinda…stuffy?”

“Really?” That was the kind of stuff girls were supposed to like; dressing up and riding in limos and being treated like a princess. The sort of stuff he’d never be able to manage with a bank account he’d only just stopped struggling to keep in the black. “But you always seemed to like it?”

“Because you were there.” There’s too much honesty shining in those eyes of hers as she says, “I think I’d like anything, so long as I did it with you.”

His breath catches, burning in his chest, and— and he can’t take this kind of shit. Oh, he can handle her wanting him, can handle her looking at him and seeing skin and teeth and a cock that can make her meet Jesus on demand, but this—

Well, he’s come a long way from throwing fists just to feel something, but there are some things that are still too good for him. “So we’ll be booking our root canals side-by-side, eh, Doc?”

She’s too polite to roll her eyes, but he earns every bit of her deadpan, “It’d be better than doing it alone.”

God, she really is too good for him. Real stealing-an-angel-from-heaven territory.

“Besides, it’s not like this our actual first date.”

Obi’s chin jerks up from where he’d been shoveling in pancakes, eyes too wide. He relaxes them, his whole body easing into a laugh he only half feels. “What do you mean, Doc? We’ve only been together forty-eight hours, and this is the first time we’ve made it out the front door.”

“Oh! Well, sure. But there was the dating auction too, right?” Her fork rests against her plate, smile softening into something too warm, too fond to be wrapped around a memory of him. “You took me out to the aquarium, remember? And then did dinner down by the harbor, and stayed in the nicest hotel I’d ever been in. At least at that point.”

Five stars were a dime a dozen now that Izana had them running around playing nicey-nice with board members and billionaires. But back then he’d still been used to motels and Holiday Inns, thinking anything with a better star rating than a van parked down the river was a luxury. Having Kiki put him up in some high rise and apologizing for a lack of a penthouse suite had been nothing short of living out one of those movies where some ten year old found a blank check and cashed it for millions of dollars.

But that’s not what he’s thinking about right now. Not when she’s looking at him, all earnest, reminding him of that stupid date, and all he can remember is— is—

The way the tank lights had fallen across her, waves of blues and greens and the bleeding edge of purple, muting the normal riot of red down to something softer, something he could reach out and touch. How she’d looked up, wonder radiating from her like his own personal sun, and he’d known down to every last cell in his body— he was fucked. That every other person on the planet would pale next to how she made him feel, so overwhelmed and full and…

And something he’d have to take to the fucking grave, because she was supposed to belong to someone else. Because it was impossible for her to want someone like him when the Boss Man existed, willing to give her the sort of life only Cinderella could dream of. And now—

Now all he can say is, “I thought you said that wasn’t a real date.”

“Oh, I…” She flushes, pink all the way past his zipper, but it’s not pleased, it’s flustered. No, sad. “I wish I’d never said that. I didn’t mean it like…”

It was stupid of him to say anything in the first place, a real fucking mood ruiner, but he still can’t stop himself from saying, “Like…?”

“It was just easier than…than admitting that I…” She shakes her head, as if it might help the words fall into order like one of those sliding puzzles. “We were just about to leave for Lyrias, and everything was changing, and I just— I was trying so hard to keep everything. For the first time in…in a long while, it felt like I had everything right, and I just wanted to keep it the way it was. Especially when…”

“When you already had Zen?” That’s when they’d been the closest, after all. They’d disappeared the night before she left, and he’d been sure, been certain that they’d sealed the deal, and not just blindly fumbling to second base. It’d even seen fitting then, a really romantic now-or-never situation that even his lovelorn ass could appreciate.

She grimaces. “When I didn’t think you could possibly like me. Not like that, I mean. You’d already said you didn’t really do dating, and I'm not really, um…”

God, he’s such an idiot.

“Doc, you gotta learn: I don’t mean half of what I say.” He squeezes her hand, fingers knitting together. “I thought I was going to crawl right out of my skin I liked you so much. I’d never really…”

Loved anyone before. It’s right there, at the tip of his tongue, and— it’s obvious, isn’t it? That he does. It’s just— it’s too soon. Not something you just come out and say, no matter how natural it seems.

“Wanted anyone the way I wanted you,” he finishes lamely. It’s close enough to what he means. They trick-or-treat in the same neighborhood, at least. “Really, I can’t believe I even slept. I thought I’d be up all night, thinking about…”

What you’d do if I tried anything. Another thing he should keep to himself. Not necessary to admit is that he ended up being ten-for-ten on noises he thought she’d make during sex. “Stuff.”

“Stuff?” Her mouth twitches, and it’s his only warning before she hums, “Oh, because you’ve been…how did you put it…’crazy about me since you met me?’”

He’s not the sort to blush— hell, he’s not even the kind of guy that regularly experiences shame— but apparently every blood vessel in his cheeks has simply been biding its time for this moment, right here. “D-Doc, you may not know this, but you can’t hold a guy responsible for things he said when you were holding his dick.”

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, worrying it as she asks, “So does that mean…it wasn’t true?”

“Hrgh…no.” His hand flexes, wanting to dig into the ache in his shoulder, right where the knife went through-and-through, but it’s busy, currently. Holding her. “It’s true, it’s just…not nice! You gotta know, guys don’t have any control over their mouths when you touch ‘em like…like that.”

“Oh…?” There’s a mischievous glint in her eye as she lifts her fork, ready to start in on pancake three. “I’ll have to remember that.”

What on earth was he thinking, letting her be this far away. Sure, civilized people keep a table between them, but that’s the thing— smiles like that don’t make Obi want to behave. No, he wants to be just like the jerk he was in Georgia, crowding Doc into the corner of the booth, barely able to keep his hands off her and not really trying. Riding the line of public decency, just because—

“Is it always like this?”

She blinks up, head tilting in question. “Is what like what?”

“Getting together. Being together.” He’d fucked a lot of girl before, but he’s never done this— dating. “You know, comparing notes. Finding out how much you liked each other when. Knowing that you wanted me to kiss you every time I wanted to kiss you the last few months. Really changes like…everything.”

Certainly puts it into perspective, at least. Even if knowing that stupid ringtone was what sent her over the edge does make him want to shove his head in the sink. Just the fact that she was thinking about him every time they sat next to each other, just as much of a live wire as he was, waiting for him to make a move, or for her to get up the courage to make her own—

The whole world might as well be different now. A nicer place. One where everything’s coming up Obi, or whatever.

“I don’t know.” It’s so soft, he almost doesn’t hear it, lost beneath the cowl neck of his hoodie. “Zen and I never actually got to this part.”

Well. That certainly wasn’t on his bingo card.

“I guess it would have been obvious for you guys,” he admits, trying not to scratch the itch that’s settled right beneath his skin. “Don’t need to ask when sparks flew with a meet cute like that.”

“No, it’s not…not that.” A finger curls over her mouth, tracing her lips in an absent way that is torturous, considering how much he’d like to be kissing them. “It’s just…we could never really admit that there was something. We had all these moments, but we couldn’t string them together into anything like a relationship.”

His jaw hangs open, only managing a, “Huh.”

“He wasn’t mine.” She isn’t looking at him, just furrowing her brow down toward where the rest of her pancake sits, untouched. “So I wasn’t really ever…”

His. Obi licks his lips, trying on a grin for size. “So you’re trying to say you’re mine, Doc?”

“Am I?” She shakes herself, a smile burning bright when she aims it at him. “You’re the one who always said we come as a matched set, aren’t you?”

“Haah.” He scrubs at the back of his neck, heat simmering too close to the surface of his skin. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

He just hadn’t expected it to be true. With a glance at Doc, happily tucking into pancake number three, he decides: it’s kinda great it is, though.

“At least I can say I did our first kiss right.”

It’s a bit from left field, he’ll give it to her, but still, there’s no reason for her to stop mid-chew, stiff as a deer in headlight. No, more like a rabbit caught in a fox’s path; frozen and actively looking for exits. “O-oh, really?”

“Yeah, I mean, we got a little more…hm…convincing later for the other kids, but” — he twitches his shoulder, trying not to look directly at her— “I was a gentleman under the mistletoe, wasn’t I? Not too much tongue. Treated you like a lady.”

“Oh.” She slaps a napkin over her mouth to keep ground up pancake from falling from it. “That kiss. Right, yes. Of course. Very…gentlemanly.”

That’s not…a typical response. “That kiss?”

“Yes.” Doc can’t lie for the life of her, and clearly she’s not about to start now. Not when she's too busy trying to look anywhere but at him to come up with anything convincing. “That kiss. The one we both think of as our first kiss.”

“Doc…” It seems impossible, but the more she squirms, sweating— as Gayle would say— like a sinner in church, there’s not a whole lot of other explanation. “You can’t be trying to tell me we kissed before that. I’d remember. It’d leave an indelible mark on my soul, or whatever.”

Or at least have been fuel for possibly the guiltiest jack off session he’d had since he was thirteen, but that’s not the sort of thing he’s about to tell her. They haven’t even paid the check yet.

“That is what you would think, isn’t it,” she says, noncommittal, her too-big eyes rolled skyward. Or at least ceiling-ward. “As a rational, thinking person.”

“No way. You have got to be kidding me.” He taps his fingers on the table, restless. “What, was I drunk or something?”

By the sudden bloom of pink over her cheeks, he can’t be far off the mark. “I was drunk?” he coughs out, hoping he’s not as flushed as he feels. “Really? I was drunk, and you took advantage—?”

“I would never—!”

“No, I change my mind, that’s kinda hot,” he decides, giving her his most wolfish grin— and is instantly rewarded with her shiver. “You crowding me into some dark corner, telling me to come bend down and—”

“Excuse me!” she shrills, primly. “You were the one cornering me!”

That hauls him up a bit, working through that mental math. “Okay, I can believe it. But what I can’t believe is that you wouldn’t give me the business about it. I can accept that maybe it was a surprise, but you could fend me off, even if I was trashed six ways to Sunday.”

“Well,” she starts lamely, “you picked me up!”

My, my. Isn’t that a picture?

“I picked you up? Drunk?” Now that’s some skill, on his part. Almost too bad he missed it. “Still. Mihaya doesn’t piss himself for nothing when you walk by. I think you coulda taken me.”

Pink deepens to a red so hot he’s half tempted to ask the kitchen for raw eggs, just to see if they’d cook. Even ducked behind his cowl he can see it, burning bright right on the apples of her cheeks. So biteable, in his opinion. “I…maybe…wasn’t trying very hard to stop you.”

A laugh bursts out of him, half a honk, and she admits, “I maybe was trying to encourage you. A little bit.”

“Encourage me? Really now.” He leans closer to purr, “Now you really gotta paint this picture for me. Where’d it happen?”

“The…the lab Christmas Party,” she squeaks, eyes meeting his for a second before scurrying off to survey the sugar packets. “It was time to head out, and I couldn’t find you in the restaurant, so I had to go into the—”

He holds up a hand, stopping her short. “Please don’t tell me it was in the bathroom.”

The last thing he needs is to find out drunk bathroom hook ups are his MO. That it’s a thing. His closer, or whatever. He can’t even remember if this place had nice ones or not.

“Um…” Her head tilts. “No, it was…outside them? I met you as I came out.”

“Thank god,” he mutters.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.” He waves his hand before dropping it to the table. “Continue.”

“Ah, that’s…mostly it. I asked if you were ready to go home, and you, um…” Oh, by the way even her neck goes pink, whatever play he made, it worked. “You said you’d take me home anytime. And then I said that I was taking you home, and you, um…suggested you weren’t very partial to the particulars.”

Not his best work, but clearly Doc was an obliging audience. “And then I picked you up?”

The sugar packets must be riveting. “Some other things happened first.”

His mouth curls. “But it was good, right? Even though I was three sheets to the wind.”

“Four sheets by that point.” She glances up at him, and oh, the shade of pink she turns is answer in itself. “And yes. Really good. Wait, where are you—?”

Obi flashes her the receipt in his hand. “I’m going to go pay for this, and then we are going home.”

She blinks. “Why?

“Because I feel like I’m missing a few key details here.” His smile must be wound just as tight as he is, at this point. “I’m going to need a dramatic reenactment.”

When he finds his voice again— much, much later— Obi rumbles out, “Well, I suppose I’ve got a few things to apologize for.”

Doc lifts her head from his chest, sweat-soaked at her hairline. “What do you mean?”

“I kissed you like that and barely a week later we were at Bob and Gayle’s, sharing a bed.” A shark’s smile spreads his lips, earning him a very skeptical furrow of her brow. “And then we kissed. A very gentlemanly kiss, when you knew I could do all that…”

“Well,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to where his scar cuts across his collarbone. “Not all of that.”

“Still.” He’s got to press his advantage now, before she figures out that shiver is for her, or catches his toes already curling. “Musta been hard for you…knowing how good I could kiss you. Having to pretend everything was the same. Not a single other soul to tell that you’d tasted of…forbidden fruit…”

He earns every inch of the grimace she gives him, but still, there’s something else to it. A hesitation. A lie.

Obi blinks. “You told someone?”

“No! No. I didn’t tell anyone…”

There it is, that flinch again. That…omission.

“Someone saw us?” Ah, there it is, the wince of truth. “Who? Don’t tell me it was Lata, I don’t think I could live it down if—”

“Not Lata,” she assures him. Still, it’s a moment before she brings herself to mumble, “It was Suzu.”

“Suzu?” Oh, the betrayal runs deep on that one. Bro knows how he feels about her, and he still—

“It’s not his fault,” she’s quick to inform him, firm enough to sweep the retribution from his mind. For now. “I sword him to secrecy.”

Doesn’t that just figure. Get drunk once in a whole calendar year, and not only does he miss kissing the girl of his dreams, but, worse, doesn’t see her threaten a man head and shoulders taller than her into keeping quiet. That’ll teach him to drink those cute little cocktails again.

“Really?” It’s a struggle not to laugh. “Why?”

“Because I never planned on telling you.”

This time a laugh does rumble out of him. “I think that’s my line.”

“Well, sure, but…” A frustrated flush breaks out over the highest parts of her cheeks. “I wasn’t your type.”

“Doc.” He’s already reaching out for her, crushing her closer. “You’re my only type.”

“Well, I know that now,” she huffs, muffled against his chest. “But you were…handsome! And…experienced! So if you were interested, clearly you would have— Obi!”

The yelp is satisfying, but it’s the way she softens beneath him that’s really going to get him in trouble, her legs hitching around his hips with no encouragement from him. Like they belong there.

“What are you doing?” she breathes, already pulling him closer.

“What I should have done months ago,” he hums, pressing a kiss to where her pulse thrums through her neck, earning himself that sweet little sigh. “I’m going to show you just how much of my type you are.”

#don't tell my boss i was hiding in the toilet reading this #WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY KISSED UNDER THE MISTLETOE #WHERE IS THIS FAKE DATING MISTLETOE INSTALLMENT #DID I MISS IT #obiyuki #I REREAD THE AQUARIUM PARAGRPAH AN UNGODLY AMOUNT OF TIMES #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #i'm actually so happy to read this chapter because for the longest time #the transition from nothing was my own to whats mine is yours to say my name HAS BEEN HAUNTING ME #HOW WOULD JEN DO IT #VIA A FAKE DATING SCHEME I HAVE NOT YET READ I GUESS #I'm gonna scream at you more in hte Ao3 comments later #but now i have to continue working oops bye

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