Work Text:
When one is described as sweet as sunshine, they get familiar with recognizing the warmth in a person. The warmth isn't physical, although the people who emanate it are often warm to the touch, like their bodies understand the kind of person they are. This is the warmth of a smile, of kind words, the kind that 'melts' another's 'frozen' heart.
Or, in my case, captures another warm one.
I remember the first time I saw him. He was hanging around Jeremy near the end of his shift. (Jeremy had mentioned his roommate coming to visit, hadn't he? Was it something about him wanting to move closer to this area or just wanting to spend the summer together? My memory never remembers the right details.)
I wasn't busy, but I didn't bring myself over to try and chat. I did keep that glance of him in mind. He was chatting excitedly with Jeremy; something about hanging out after Jeremy's shift. Messy black hair, dark brown skin, and a bright red hoodie. In fact, he had this warm, reddish undertone to his entire being.
I saw him smile for the first time.
Suddenly, I was red too.
I hurried away to continue working.
It felt like I could not escape that smile. Wherever he was, his wide, jubilant grin would always make an appearance on his face. I started to notice certain details about him, just like I did with regular customers.
He didn't mind wearing jeans in the burning summer heat. He had a loud, joyous laugh that carried across the pizzeria; the kind that caused the children to join in with their squeals of laughter. He brought out this exhasperated side of Jeremy, who always seemed to be lecturing him about rash decisions.
And of course, that smile almost never wavered.
After the bite, I stopped seeing him at the pizzeria. I wasn't surprised.
I remember a glimpse of him in the hospital room, asleep in the chair at Jeremy's bedside.
I was in and out before he came to.
I only lingered on him and his smile for months afterwards. Through the start of the new pizzeria, through the night after night taking the graveyard shifts and filing through paperwork, dwindling from my mind, little by little. By the time I had tired out, when I was repeating the continous cycle of well buried anxiety beneath my own little sunshine, I had nearly forgot him.
Things happen fast. Things crashed like a dish on the floor, slipping through my fingers. Fast forward past a frantic week of nightly calls, getting bloodied and broken, hospitalization, waiting, waiting, waiting. Even the mundanity of a week of hospital recovery flashes by and rushes me forward. Suddenly, jarring me like a car slammed on it's brakes, the world stops.
A knock at the door.
Skitters is set off barking immediately. I feel myself hesitate for one, two, three moments before quieting her. What? Wait, what's the time-? Who's at my door at 3 AM-? Nutterbutter is asleep on my lap. I gently move him aside, frowning. Darn, I woke him-
Another knock at the door.
"I-I'm uh! H-Hold on-!" I call, trying to hoist myself up as I grab a crutch leaning against the wall. Supported, I make my way to the door through the dark hallway.
It's dark. The rain is pouring, pounding down outside, but over it I can hear the ticking of the clock near the doorway.
I hear my heart thumping.
I open up the door.
Blue.
Deep, vibrant, brilliant blue eyes meet mine.
A smile.
That smile.
And I'm even more ensnared than I ever had been before, because this time I can feel myself fall in love.
It's him. Soaked to the bone, wet clothes sticking to his frame, water still dripping down his face. My eyes are still locked on his.
"I...,"
He adverts his eyes sheepishly. "I... Sh-Shit, I rushed out here, and I didn't even think of how to introduce myself...." he says, still giving a bright, relieved smile. He looks tired, sleep deprived, and almost miserable, but the softness in his eyes and smile melt my heart.
"I'm Mike," he begins, straightening himself up and offering his hand. "Mike Schmidt. I've heard about you a lot, since I was uh- I was Jeremy's roommate, and, well...."
He took a deep breath.
"I was worried you weren't going to be here, after the... after that call."
He glances over my broken arm and leg, wrapped in their colorful signed casts, to the bandages peeking from beneath the stretched out sweater, to the crutch I'm leaning on.
I am suddenly aware of what he's been through this past week as I take his hand in my own. It's wet and cold, and he seems surprised by how warm my own is.
I look back into his eyes, and find the warmth he always seemed to project huddled in his worried expression.
"I'm glad you're okay, I was just so, so worried I'd find you back there, a-and, I'm.... I was scared you would be... gone, um...," he buries his face in his hand. I realize that it wasn't just rain running down his face. "I never got your name, so I-I've kept calling you my 'Phone Guy', so...."
"I'm, um, I-I'm Percy," I stutter. He looks back at me, blue eyes standing out even more now that they've reddened from crying. "I... Would you like to come in? It must be freezing out there...."
As he blesses me with another smile, I feel myself relax at last.
Maybe I can get used to this.