Work Text:
You rushed to your front door, unlocking it in a haste, and sped walked through it as soon as the small ‘click!’ cued that you could enter. You stand in the middle of the opening room, hastily taking off your work apron, shoes, and work belt. You simply ached to be out of all of those annoying clothes as soon as possible.
“Howdy, Neighbor.” A familiar voice says silently at your doorstep, and you jump and spin at the sudden intrusion.
“Jeez, Wally! You scared me!” You said as you fumbled towards the doorstep to meet him, not realizing you had accidentally left your door open.
“I…did? But you were smiling when you turned around.” Wally’s eyes open slightly from their usual half lidded gaze, and your brow furrows in confusion.
Suddenly, you register the familiar feeling of your mouth forcing itself up into a smile, and you rub at your cheeks a bit as you let them fall back down into a more neutral expression.
“S-Sorry! Force of habit!” You stutter slightly from embarrassment, avoiding eye contact to instead look at the floor.
“Oh, that’s quite alright. I get it.” Wally reassures with his signature smile of his own, but hesitates when you don’t respond to him right away and instead keep your gaze to the floor.
“Hey, neighbor…?” Wally’s hand is placed on your shoulder, and you look back up at the sound of Wally’s voice now being laced with empathy, “Are you ok?” He says gently while locking his eyes onto yours, a blank expression with a trace of tenderness in his gaze.
“O-Oh yeah…yeah I’m fine! Just uh-tired…” You say as you fidget slightly with your hands, suddenly nervous under Wally’s stare. He takes notice of your nervous fidgeting, and lets go of your shoulder.
“I was just checking since you left your door open. It isn’t safe to do that, you know.” Wally’s face twists up a bit in concern, but his smile still remained.
“I know, I know! It was an accident…ugh…” You huff out of both embarrassment and frustration, not enjoying being reminded of your mistakes.
Your eyes meet a spot on the floor again, breaking eye contact with Wally, which would usually result in a reminder from Wally to keep his eyes on him when he’s speaking to you. But this time he did not tell you that, instead you could feel the stare on you soften as Wally’s smile curls up a bit in your peripheral vision.
“Would you like to talk about it? About what’s bothering you?” Wally asks, reaching behind him to close the door to your house for you as a silent push to get you to talk to him. You quite frankly did not need that push though, and you instead took that as a sign that he will stay over for a while.
“Yes, I would! It’s just that…uh…” You trailed off as you look back down at your work clothes, then look back to him and his face.
“Ah I see, would you rather have some time alone then…?” His face was back to its default expression as he began turning away from you to reach for the doorknob, but you quickly stopped him by waving your hands in front of you a bit.
“No no it’s ok! I just need to go change out of this work uniform, if you don’t mind. Change into something comfier.” You explain yourself as Wally’s smile grows wider.
“Hahaha. Hahaha.” Wally turns back to face you and smile after letting out his usual monotone laugh, “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, neighbor. This is your house afterall. I will just sit myself in your living room while you go and get changed.” Wally closes his eyes with a wide smile, then walks around you and down the hall, walking towards the direction of your living room.
You follow behind him down the hall and turn the opposite way to get to your room. It looks like you will have a guest for a little while.
——-
“Yeah, it’s a habit I gained while at work.” You begin your explanation next to Wally on the couch, now in your favorite longer wear to treat yourself and a cup of your favorite tea in your hands (courtesy of Wally making it for you).
When you returned to see Wally his stare was fixed on the various decorations around your house, but it seemed as soon as you returned all of his attention was on you. He wasted no time in ensuring you were comfortable, and patiently waited for you to talk through your day before bringing back up your strange forced smile at him earlier.
“Where I work outside of the neighborhood customer service and being nice to everyone is a big thing that’s stressed to us that we need to do. I got reprimanded once for seemingly having a ‘blank face’ while talking to customers,” you scowl as you did air quotes with one hand, “and that resulted in me building a habit of forcing a smile on my face whenever I greet someone at the store.” You huffed and take a hearty swig of your tea, turning to face Wally to continue your rant.
“But then the more I focused on smiling whenever I greeted people, the more I realized just how many people I so much as walk past while working, so that made me begin to smile literally everytime I hear a customer call out to me or just make eye contact with one!” You throw a hand in the air, spilling a little bit of tea in the process, but you don’t notice it. “So now whenever I’m at work it’s become a default masking trick, but it’s rather difficult to notice it or stop it once I’m already used to doing it. And apparently now it leaves me default smiling at people without me even noticing my mouth is turned up!” You finish with a heavy sigh, Wally’s expression barely wavering at all to even give a signal he wanted to speak until you were done.
“I see.” Wally shuffles as he holds his own tea cup in his hands, shifting his eyes down to stare at the warm liquid in silent appreciation. “Honestly though neighbor, I very much get it. I can’t stop smiling either.” You turn to look at Wally in slight shock when he admitted this, and you can’t help but be curious.
“Wait really? So you can’t frown at all?” You inquire, but Wally only silently shakes his head no as confirmation.
You set your tea down on a nearby table, and scooch towards Wally until your legs are touching. You then put your hands in both sides of his face, and attempt to pull his face downwards on the sides of his mouth to get him to frown. It only sort of works, the very corners of his lips turn downwards with the pull but the rest of his mouth stays fixed in place. As soon as you let go of his face Wally’s smile goes right back to where it was.
“The closest I can do is make my smile smaller.” He says matter of factly while letting his mouth shrink down into a thin line, but a faint smile was still visible.
“Doesn't it hurt to smile for so long like that?” You asked, concern filling up the features of your face.
“No, I don’t have any memories about it hurting or giving me pain.” He reassures you as he puts his default smile back on.
You pause, nodding to yourself a bit as you pick the tea back up to look down at it a bit sadly, sipping it as you think over the information. A soft comforting weight returns to your shoulder though, and you look back up to see Wally’s hand back onto you with his eyes filled with gentle worry.
“My point though friend, is that I get it. It can be rather hard to deal with habits and instincts like these. I just wanted to let you know you’re not alone. And you don’t need to hide those problems from me either.” He reassures you, and you feel yourself overcome with gratitude and emotions you couldn’t quite describe.
Before you knew it you picked up both of your tea cups, put them aside, and wrapped your arms around Wally. Wally made a slight noise of surprise at the gesture, but let his arms rest at your sides in response. you realize what you just did though, and you let go with a flushed red dusting your cheeks.
“S-Sorry! I just…really appreciate what you just said.” You mumble quietly, but Wally doesn’t respond to your apology with words.
Instead he quietly pulls you back down onto his chest, and lets you settle into his warmth and soft embrace. His arms wrapped around you, much to your surprise, and his usual dry chuckle comes out of his throat.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. You’re ok, friend. I quite like your cuddles anyway.” He says quietly against the top of your head, and nuzzles into your hair.
You smile as you wrap your arms back around him, and this time the smile wasn’t forced at all. It wasn’t your usual customer service smile either. It was one filled with nothing but love and happiness behind it.