Work Text:
You look up from your Spotify library on your charging phone as you hear Johnny pad into the room, engrossed in the instructions at the back of the face pack cover. He sits down next to your cross-legged frame, a quizzical look on his face.
“We need a brush? And a toner? Do you have a toner? I don’t have a toner,” he rattles off, while he continues perusing the back of the packet.
You wrack your brain, trying to remember what a toner is. Either way, you don’t have it.
“I can supply a paint brush, but that’s about it,” you say, patting his knee comfortingly.
He dramatically falls backwards on the bed, randomly flinging away the offending cover as he whines, “Why did we decide to do a pack and not a sheet mask this time?”
You turn your attention back to the task at hand (choosing a playlist) and distractedly hum, “It was your idea, if I remember right.”
He lets out a groan as he says, “I didn’t think it would be this complicated. I want my SK-II back.”
“Maybe you should’ve read the instructions before buying the packet then, you big diva,” you noncommittally reply, as you try to pick between Hmm Haw #1 and LMAOPQRST.
You’ve almost settled on closing your eyes and randomly letting your finger hit a playlist when you begin to feel a repetitive, insistent tug at the back of your t-shirt. You place your phone on the side table, resigned to the backward tumble and with one last pull, you’re falling onto Johnny’s body.
His hands snake behind your back, to prevent escape, and he lets out a contented sigh.
Bracing your palms on his chest, you lift your head to meet his eyes and say, “We don’t have to do this tonight, you know? We can just go to sleep.”
With a quick shake of his head, he replies, “No, I want to try, though. It’s okay. It says toner’s optional anyway.”
That isn’t the point but you murmur a conceding “Okay" anyway and make your way to get up, but he doesn’t let you, jerking you back down and pulling your head into his neck.
It’s so warm and comfortable, even with your glasses knocking into his jaw and the nose pads pressing into the side of your nose, and it takes nearly all your mental strength to mutter against his skin, “I fail to see how we’re going to get anything done in this position.”
Johnny emits another one of those sighs that make him sound like he hasn’t lied down in ten years when really, the two of you just spent the entire day sleeping and eating and watching television.
“Just for a couple of minutes, then you can go get that brush and I’ll find us some music,” he says.
That makes you wriggle out of your cozy little neck-crook and fix him with an annoyed look. “It’s my turn to pick a playlist,” you assert.
“And how’s that going?” he conversationally asks with a teasing pinch to the side of your waist.
You push yourself off of him with an offended gasp, his arms no match for your affront. Sitting up so you’re straddling his stomach, you cross your arms and indignantly pout. “I was almost there. Maybe if somebody hadn’t distracted me…,” you trail off, looking at him over the top of your glasses pointedly.
Undeterred by your stern glare, his hands trail up until they’re resting lightly on your hips, thumbs slipping under the cotton of your t-shirt and tracing circles on the skin there.
“Rock, paper, scissors for who gets to pick the music?” he asks with a cheeky smile.
It’s really a testament to how simultaneously competitive and enamoured you are when you agree and uncross your arms, stick a tight fist out towards his face and give him a firm nod.
You know you’re going to lose before you even throw your scissors out, watching dispassionately as his fist remains closed and gently bonks over your two outstretched fingers.
Moving off of him wordlessly, you ungracefully stumble out of the bed, catching sight of his smug grin in the low light as he sits back up and lifts your phone from the side table.
You flip him off on your way out of the room, getting an amused chuckle and a “Don’t be a sore loser!” in response.
It’s easy enough, finding the paintbrush that you keep in the pen stand on your desk, more for the aesthetic than any real proclivity towards art, and you re-enter your room that’s now filled with Pomme’s voice spilling sentimental French out of your phone speakers, soft enough to not make you too sad but still loud enough to make you feel. LMAOPQRST it is.
He’s sat on the floor, looking so indescribably soft in his white t-shirt and plaid pyjama pants, pouring the contents of the packet into a bowl with a mug of water next to him. You sit down on the other side of the container, facing him, paintbrush in hand, ready to start mixing at his signal.
You think, maybe, you should’ve tired yourselves out a bit during the day as he starts exaggeratedly screaming, “Now! Now! Y/N, just do it! Make it quick! Mix! MIX IT!” like a dying man when he begins adding the water. With an uncontrollable roll of your eyes, you put the paintbrush inside and swirl it around, watching as the mixture becomes a shade of murky brown that looks absolutely nothing like the pretty lavender colour on the packet.
The two of you make eye contact over the bowl in silent conversation and with a quick, decisive nod, you’re both standing and making your way straight to the washroom, bowl in your arms. You pour the now-clumpy, decidedly incorrectly prepared substance down the drain as he opens the tap and watches it flow down.
Your eyes meet in the mirror again and he says, quite shamelessly really, with a teasing grin playing on his lips, “Rock, paper, scissors for who has to replace the paintbrush?”
With a faux-annoyed grunt, you roughly push the dirty bowl against his chest and walk out of the washroom, grabbing the brush off of the floor and plodding out of the room.
You can hear laughter and running water as he shouts, “But we didn’t even play! You might have won!”
You return the paintbrush to the desk and trek back to your room for the second time that night, too proud to admit that you might also be giggling a fair bit. But there’s no point. He knows. He always does.
Johnny walks out of the bathroom, clean, empty bowl in hand. He looks up at your quiet frame standing at the doorway, gives you a soft smile as he carefully places the container on the vanity next to the empty face mask packet and extends his left hand towards you, bowing slightly, intentions evident.
Half-exasperated, half-gleeful, but so very easily, you place your palm in his, and now he’s tugging until you’re nose to neck, fingers intertwined and other arm wrapped around each other’s waist.
You feel a pair of lips on the top of your head and hear a whispered, “Thank you for putting up with me,” mumbled against your hair.
You want to scream that no, it’s a pleasure, an honour, and that you’re the one who should be thanking him for dealing with your overthinking and your emotional constipation and all your suppressed feelings that need days to be wheedled out of you.
Settling for a kiss against his neck, you can only hope he understands what you can’t verbalise just yet.