#one is also really angsty and idk if i want to go into the brettsey angst just yet :(

[brettsey-two-tts]

Title: Don't give up on us

Brettsey

After Stella and Severide's wedding, they decide to take a break. They think it's for the better. They think it'll help them make whatever decision they'll need to make. They tell each other, right before Matt jumps on his flight back to Oregon, that they'll talk to each other in two weeks, thinking their decision will come by then.

Matt can barely get through the first day. When he gets home that evening, his first instinct is to call his girlfriend to let her know he got home okay and to tell her he misses her, but as he holds his phone in his hand, his shoulders slump at the remembrance of their relationship status. He decides to simply text her that he got home. She replies a few minutes later, telling him to have a good day at work tomorrow. It's a simple reply and nothing short of casual which is what he hates. He doesn't want a normal reply. He wants to see the ridiculous amount of heart emojis she adds at the end of her sentences and the promise to FaceTime him later.

An hour after dinner, Ben is still lounging in the living room, watching whatever show he landed on after some channel surfing. He sees the time on his phone and realizes it's almost time for Matt and Sylvie's phone call to each other. He doesn't want to intrude on their conversation or hear any grossly cute things they often say to each other, so, out of habit, he turns off the television. As he's about to head to his room, he sees Matt at the dining table. He's hunching over some work reports and flipping through other papers to his right.

Ben checks his phone again and looks confused at the time. It was almost three minutes past their usual call time.

"Matt?"

Matt looks up expectantly and smiles. "Yes, Ben. What's up?"

Ben furrows his brows. "Aren't you supposed to be calling Sylvie right now?"

That's when Matt's smile falls. He explains to Ben what happened while he was in Chicago. While he was there for his best friend's wedding and while he did have a fantastic time, he and Sylvie still had to address some things about their relationship. He feels his heart drop to his stomach when Ben starts to say how happy Sylvie looked to be spending a couple months with them. He ends with his confusion about the whole thing. He doesn't understand why they decided to take a break and Matt doesn't blame him. Ben and Griffin saw his relationship with Sylvie firsthand and they were nothing but observant about how happy they looked together. As Griffin once told him, it was like they were seeing a whole other side of Matt whenever Sylvie was visiting.

"So, that's it?" Ben asks with some anger in his tone. He looks visibly upset as he continues, "You guys are just going to... stop?"

Matt blinks; he was taken aback by Ben's sudden outburst. "I mean, we're going to talk again in a couple of weeks to make a real decision."

Ben wears a lopsided frown. "What happened to wanting to spend the rest of your life with her?" Matt's eyebrows raise. He said those words to Sylvie in private, but then again, the walls in the house were thin. "What happened to leaning on each other no matter what time of day? You promised nothing would change."

"Ben--"

"Yeah, okay, I know, I shouldn't eavesdrop but it's kind of hard not to when the walls are super thin and I'm trying to text my friends or do my homework. Are you really going to let her leave? Are you not going to fight for her?"

Matt's back straightened at the questions, realizing that they were really good questions and ones that he should've asked himself when they decided to take a break in the first place.

"What happens when she's walking down the aisle to some other guy and you're sitting in the crowd wishing it was you? What happens when she's already in another relationship and you start to regret everything?"

And maybe that's the kick in the ass he needed. Maybe, just maybe, that's the imagery he needed all along because the thought of Sylvie in another relationship and walking down the aisle for some other guy makes him sick to his stomach. The thought of hearing her laugh as she's dancing in her wedding dress with someone other than him makes him upset. And yes, he did promise nothing would change.

He takes a flight out the morning he leaves shift. He's at her doorstep in five hours. When he knocks on her door, he has a whole speech ready but when the doors open and he sees her hair in a messy bun with loose curls framing her face, wearing a large t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of black nightshorts, he forgets everything entirely.

"I'm not giving up on us, Sylvie," he tells her. "I don't want us to be on a break, I don't want us to re-evaluate our relationship, and I don't want to fall in love with anyone else. I want you. Only you."

She feels bad that he took a flight just to say that to her and tells him that he could've called her, but he replies that it wouldn't be right to say it over the phone. He tells her that saying it in person would make it more meaningful, more serious, and more true because he does want all those things he told her over the phone. He does want to spend the rest of his life with her, he does want to move in with her when he moves back to Chicago, he does want her to lean on him when she needs to, and he does want her to call him her home.

And just like he did when they were walking on the street outside of Molly's, he sealed everything with a long, heartstopping, kiss.