SMILE + Angst prompts #3 - Flavio x2, Alan

“Oh my god. You’re smiling!” “No, I’m not. Fuck off.” - Flavio

“Maybe he’s lost,” Flavio mumbles as he tries to balance his pen between his nose and upper lip, while simultaneously balancing himself on the back legs of the office chair. “For real this time.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to see your face longer than he has to. I know I’d pass if I could,” you scoff, but the venom in your voice has long since stopped being biting. Now, your snark is more of a habit than anything.

“What? But I’m so handsome. I’m doing you a service,” Flavio grins, fluttering his eyes exaggeratedly when you make the mistake of glancing at him. “Ah, shoot!” His expression promptly changes to a frown when all his pouting dislodges the pen. 

“Dumbass,” you mumble as he dives under the desk, resurfacing after a second with the pen tucked behind his ear. 

“No, but seriously. It’s been like, what, ten minutes? How long do you reckon it takes to get to the reception?”

“For you? Half an hour, minimum.” If only because he stops to chat with every person he encounters. Every. Single. One.

“Aww, are you counting the seconds when I’m away?”

You don’t deign that with an answer other than an eye roll in his general direction. Ignoring him is... doable, usually, but he makes it particularly hard when he suddenly leans closer, resting his chin on his clasped hands. 

“Oh my god. You’re smiling!” His gleeful exclamation brings your attention to the state of your lips, only slightly curled up. Naturally, you force them back into a scowl. 

“No, I’m not,” you protest. And it’s not a lie, since you’re certainly not smiling anymore. Not that the fact matters to Flavio, who’s seemingly more than ready to argue the case. So, before he can even start, you tell him to “Fuck off.”

“How could I when I know how much you miss me when I— Ouchie!” Your kick barely lands, but it’s enough of a surprise to make him jerk up in his seat and ram his knees into the underside of the desk, causing a ruckus on the surface. “Oh, that’s how you want to play it? Bring it on.”

He kicks you right back, too slow for you not to evade it. Unfortunately for you, it was only a ruse, and the paper ball he launches at you next hits you square on the forehead. 

“Bullseye,” he grins, laughing when you throw the ball back, missing him by an inch. “Bahaha, terrible eye-hand coordination, you wouldn’t last a— Oof!”

His chest proves to be a better target than his head, and your pen slams him in the middle of it, falling under his open collar. “You were saying?”

“There are better ways to ask me to strip, you know?” Flavio smirks, reaching a hand under his shirt to fish out the pen. He doesn’t give it back, though, tucking it behind his other ear instead.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I don’t have to with you here.”

“Ugh, shut up,” you mutter on reflex. Truthfully, you know that asking him to be silent is like demanding someone to stop breathing. Both are just as impossible in the long run. 

For a few moments, his mouth isn’t moving, though that doesn’t mean he’s not annoying you in other ways, namely by hooking his foot over the closest leg of your chair, yanking you closer. 

“You’re five years old, I swear!” you yelp, trying to do the same to him and failing. 

“Six and a half,” he laughs, smoothly avoiding getting kicked in the shin. “Ah, you’re hitting a child!”

“I’ll show you a—”

“I brought coffee. Uh.” Maverick’s face is carefully schooled, even as he takes a step back through the ajar door. “Should I come back later?” 

“No, no. I was just beating him up.” Maverick doesn’t really level you with a look, but the skepticism is positively oozing out of him, especially after Flavio giggles, making it seem like you were doing something you shouldn’t have been. “Ahem, stop hovering by the door and come on in.”

A moment of silence passes. Then, Maverick sighs. “All right,” he says, stepping into the room but leaving the door open behind him. 

“I’m in love with you, you dumbass.” - Flavio 

Flavio staggers into the room looking and smelling like a wet dog. In the split second of noticing you, the bone-deep exhaustion vanishes under the guise of a smile that he has to forcibly sweep away when he realizes it’s only you present.

He’s not quite used to letting his guard down yet, aside from the few instances when he had no choice in that matter. He does seem to try, but he’s unsure how to act now, after your first big argument since you got - properly - together. 

It comes as a surprise to him, to see you here, but also as a relief. Perhaps he expected you to avoid him after the screaming match you engaged in at the HQ’s parking lot, even though he was right. He usually is. And it’s more your fault than his, though you’d know he’d argue about that if you brought it up. 

“Hey, pumpkin, whatchu doing?” As it is in his nature, he tries for a cheerful approach, but he sounds as though his throat was put through a grinder, ruining whatever tone he was going for initially. It causes him to wince. Him, and you, both. 

He doesn’t notice your reaction, busy as he is staring at the small pool of rainwater gathering beneath his feet. Despite the cold that he must be feeling, and the shivers that wreck his frame, he reaches for the nearby felt rug to wipe the ground with it, instead of a towel for himself. 

You vaguely remember how the sight of him and his martyr-like tendencies used to stir you up inside. They still do, though for a wholly different reason. 

“I made a mess,” he says under his breath, but something tells you he doesn’t mean the floor, not entirely. 

Pushing yourself off the couch, you wordlessly yank the rug out of his hands and leave it in the bathroom to wash later. When you return with a large towel, Flavio is still standing where you left him, hunched over and untethered. He didn’t even take off his shoes. 

It’s strange. He used to be so heated when you first met, when you tussled and pulled and pushed. And now he’s hovering in his own hallway like an intruder, too skittish to even look at you directly. 

His clothes and hair smell like rainwater and the bottom of an ashtray, only his breath retains the scent of bubblegum. He must have spit it out before coming here. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Your voice seems altogether too loud, and too cutting in the fragile silence of the apartment. No matter how soft you try to make it, it just comes out wrong. “Come here.”

Flavio’s shoulders square up, as if in preparation for a punch. They relax when he realizes that the towel is the only thing that touches him. The thick fuzzy cloth is barely long enough to cover his head and half of his upper body. 

The stray moisture that gathers at the ends of his eyelashes drips down his cheek. It makes him look like he’s crying, and it’s hard for you to stomach, so you brush it away along the smudged remnants of his kohl.

As you move on to dry his hair, the tremors grow stronger, but they subdue the second you pull the towel off him, wrapping it around his arms like a cocoon. He doesn’t make a caterpillar joke, doesn’t say anything, really, only looking at your hands as they pat him dry as best as they can without telling him to strip. 

And maybe you should have done that first, but you find yourself reluctant to get your hands off him, not when it seems like they’re the only thing that holds him together. 

“I’m not angry,” you say, noticing that the admission does nothing to help his tense muscles relax. You’d ask him if he is, but it’s clear that anger is not what he’s feeling right now.

Still, he slopes his head in a limp gesture that could mean anything from acknowledgment or a refusal to do so, but one of his hands rests on top of yours, squeezing your fingers. 

“I— I don’t know why you’re dealing with me,” he starts, titling his lips into that crooked, self-deprecating smile. “Why you’re still here.”

“Because I love you,” you say before he can spit out any more of his nonsense. It’s always easier to firmly stop him before he spirals rather than to do damage control after. “I’m in love with you, dumbass.”

You can’t see his expression under the locks of wet hair plastered over his eyes, but you’d have to be deaf not to hear the sharp exhale he takes. It’d be touching if it didn’t happen so often. 

“What? Are you going to be like this every time I say it?” 

Flavio swallows thickly. He starts to shake his head, then nod, only to break into a mad cackle. “Probably,” he says in the end. “Me too, by the way.” 

“You love yourself, too?” you tease, scrunching your brow in disbelief. “That’s why you’re sopping wet?”

“I love you, too. But you know that already.” 

There’s a lot you could say to that, but all the words dry out on your tongue when Flavio sneezes, forcing a laugh out of you. “Let’s get you changed, shall we?” you sigh, pushing him in the direction of his bedroom. He pauses every few steps, just so he can feel your hands on his back. 

“You know,” he chuckles, skirting on the edge of an innuendo, no doubt. “I should get wet more often if—”

“No, you should not.” 

“But—”

“No.”

“Aww, spoilsport.” 

“Why do I keep doing this to myself...” - Alan

You meet Alan in the local bookstore. Or, more like, you know he’ll be there, and so you drag your ass two streets down to ‘stumble’ into him. Coincidentally. You’d feel worse about it if he didn’t use the same excuse when he went out of his way to visit your favorite restaurant despite hating eating out. You’re well-matched, it seems, in that aspect. 

It’s almost too easy to guess the exact time and location of his little shopping trip. For one, he’s too busy with Colton’s case to waste his precious time outside of his lunch break. For another, he hates crowds and noise, and so he picks the most secluded bookstores in the area that are still large enough to be stacked. That narrows it down to one. 

As winter inevitably approaches, the sky above turns dark early into the evening. The streetlights turn on one by one as you walk, lighting your way in either encouragement or some ill-fated premonition, you can’t decide which.

Your heart pounds. It’s all you can hear, even as your footsteps grow louder and louder on the pavement. The chime of the store’s doorbell doesn’t register in your mind as you rush inside the building, eyes scanning for—

Ah, there he is, in his bottle-green coat, holding three books under his arm. He’s at the checkout, absentmindedly perusing the ‘recommended’ racks. His hand hovers over a particular book, then backtracks. He reaches for it again a moment later, then takes his hand away. It happens multiple times before he eventually grabs the book and adds it to his to-be-purchased pile. 

He doesn’t notice you yet, and you don’t announce yourself either. There’s no reason to. He can’t avoid you in public, not like how he’s been doing it in private lately. He cares far too much about his image, so he won’t run away from you or risk causing a scene. 

Still, you’d rather not have this conversation in the middle of a store, so you backtrack to the street. You don’t retreat stealthily, oh no. It doesn’t matter if he sees you now, as there’s only one door in and out. Try as he might - and did for the past two weeks - he can’t escape the overdue confrontation. 

Alan has to know it, too, because he takes his sweet time before he emerges out of the store, eyes already on you from the moment he opens the door. He doesn’t look amused, then again, he never does. 

“Are you mad at me?” you start, wincing at how pathetic it sounds. 

Your expression prevents Alan from saying his usual, ‘And good day to you, too,’ for which you’d be grateful if it didn’t make you so irate. You could do without his consideration at a time like this, but of course, he’s like a snake with its teeth pulled out when you need his venom the most. 

“What’s the deal with you?” you try again, satisfied by the question and the delivery both. 

Alan opens his mouth, and you watch him sway between the good old ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and the hard, cold truth, that shouldn’t be hard at all. That it will be cold, you have no doubt, as he’s never been one to spare someone from the bite of his honesty. This time, though, he simply presses his lips into a thin, inseparable line. 

“What? Not even a ‘I’m busy’?” you snort, crossing your arms. The emotion, or just the weather, makes your teeth chatter. The sound seems to rouse Alan from whichever stupor he’s been in. 

He looks to the side, then back at you. “Let’s go for a coffee,” he says, placing his hand on your elbow as if to guide you, but you shake him off, taking a step back and out of his reach. You don’t need his pity dates or his handouts. 

“No. I won’t take up more of your time,” you huff, wrapping your arms around you tighter. The tremors don’t stop, but you can ignore them fine. “I never took you for a man who steers away from addressing an issue, so color me surprised when I see you jumping through hoops just to avoid me.” 

“It’s because you—”

“What?”

Alan’s jaw spasms, like he wants to finish, but is holding himself back. He grits his teeth, again saying nothing. 

“Fine. I had hoped you’d tell it to me straight, but it seems you are too much of a coward, just like Alois said.” 

The insult grates him, you can tell, but he doesn’t argue with it like you figured he would. It doesn’t surprise you. Lately, he’s been doing the opposite of what you’d hope he would. 

It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Don’t worry, I won’t call you again.” With nothing more to say, you pivot. Only for Alan to get in your way, stepping around you.

“Wait,” he says, too quietly for it to be a shout, but sternly enough to resemble an order. Your glower makes him sigh. “Wait, please.” The polite language doesn’t make it more of a request, not when his tone is as surly as ever.

You do oblige, out of the unfortunate fact that you don’t actually want to leave. Despite everything, you missed him. You couldn’t have been more obvious about it if you tried.

“What now?” you ask, holding onto the barbed end of your growing grudge. You only have your ire to anchor yourself to, but one right word, and you know you’ll let go of it. “Alan?”

His expression - once you dare to look him directly in the eye - is a mimicry of yours. Anger, hesitation, hurt. It’s like you fucked him over, not the other way around.

“Why do I keep doing this to myself...” he mutters under his breath, annoyed and... hopeless? It’s a strange tone, one you don’t remember hearing from him... ever.

With less grace than usual, he pulls one of the books he just bought out of the paper bag they were wrapped in. He gives it a hard stare, then, unceremoniously, he pushes it into your hands. 

“Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I were,” he grits out, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “Call me later if you still want to,” he says, then promptly walks off in the direction of his office. If his pace was just a tad quicker, you’d accuse him of running. 

Bereft and even more confused than before you got here, you look at the book that was ‘handed’ to you. It’s a thin, plain-looking guide, with a powder pink cover and a bolded title that states, ‘Love And Relationships For Dummies.’ 

Wait. He doesn’t mean— 

Your head shoots up lightning-quick, but Alan’s nowhere to be found. 

“Holy shit.” There’s no way, is there?