Work Text:
March is sitting at his desk, working in the accounts book, when you enter the shop on a cold winter’s night. He bites back a groan as you hang up your coat and make yourself at home — something he’d insisted on back when you first started dating, and now sorely regrets. You’re just so… distracting. And he has work to do. Boring work. Really boring work, that you no doubt will try to pull him from, and he’ll give in.
“Hey.” You drape yourself over his back as you stand behind his chair, wrapping your arms around him as he only gives a grunt in greeting and continues scribbling in his book. “Have you been in here all day?”
March taps the page with his pen. “Accounts need to be in order for the season. Adeline is collecting tax forms at the end of the week.”
“Oh yeah, I finished mine yesterday.”
March pauses, turning his head slightly to meet your eye. “You live on the land for free. What taxes are you paying?”
“Income.” You say it like it’s obvious, and maybe it is. “I was wondering, when we move in together, would our income be counted together or separate? I’m not familiar with Mistria’s systems. March?”
When we move in together. When. Not if. When. March blinks, his focus no longer on the page but on your arms around him.
“March? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” He straightens his shoulders, pushing you off of him, and hunches in his chair even more.
He can feel your eyes on him as you lean forward, inspecting his side profile. “Are you… blushing?”
“No! Shut up!” His head hangs lower and he scowls off to the side as your stupid smiling face appears in his peripheral vision. When you pop up on the other side of him, laughing, he groans and attempts to avoid your gaze once more.
“March, it’s okay—” Your voice breaks off with another laugh that just makes his face flush even more. Your hands are on his shoulders, but that isn’t what’s holding him in his chair. Your joy at his misfortune has him rooted to the spot, especially when you manage to press a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sorry. I meant sometime in the future, but I shouldn’t have assumed. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” Your voice is frustratingly warm and understanding.
When you begin to back off, March shoots his arm out, wrapping it around your waist and pulling you into his lap. You yelp at the sudden movement, though you don’t pull away when his face buries into your neck, his nose flooding with the smell of fresh soil and river water. One hand rests on his bicep, the other curling into his hair in a way that never fails to relax his shoulders. “We would file them separately until we’re married,” He grumbles into the curve of your neck, unsure of whether or not you even heard him.
Your fingers pausing in his hair are his answer, and you hum. Your cheek presses against the side of his head. “Your roots are growing out.”
He would roll his eyes if they weren’t closed. “I’ll have Vera touch them up on Saturday.”
“Or I could try.”
That prompts him to lift his head, squinting at you suspiciously. “You want to try your hand at cosmetology now?”
“What can I say, I like being a jack of all trades.” Your voice is small, and you won’t meet his eye.
“Now you’re blushing.” It would’ve been hard to tell for anyone else, but after seasons of studying your face, he recognized the warm tinge in your cheeks. His arms tighten around you as you purse your lips. “Are you seriously jealous? Of Vera?”
“What? No!” You scoff, though it's unconvincing. Of your many talents, lying isn’t one of them. “Okay, maybe a little. But you tell me that if someone was playing with my hair for an hour every week that you wouldn’t feel some type of way about it.” No, you aren’t actually jealous. You’re secure in your relationship, and trust both March and Vera. But you can’t deny that something about dyeing his hair feels intimate, and you want to experience it.
March watches you justify your feelings to yourself, his brow lifted and a smirk on his face. “You’re cute when you're possessive.”
“Shut up.”
He complies, butterflies rising in your stomach as he kisses you. One arm tightens around your back, and the other moves under your knees as he stands, carrying you with him to his room. He has until the end of the week for the tax forms, anyway. A little distraction isn’t the end of the world.
~~~
“Hey, Farmer!” Vera waves you down on Saturday, beckoning you closer with her hand. She doesn’t have any clients she’s currently working on, meaning there’s no eavesdroppers when she leans forward on her desk with a warm smile. “March told me you wanted to learn how to dye hair. You trying to put me out of business?”
Oh, you’re going to kill him. You look around, clocking him where you last saw him at Merri’s stall, and turn back to Vera. “Not at all. No one could ever replace you, Vee.”
She laughs. “Well, if you’re serious about learning, you can dye my hair.”
Your eyes widen in shock. “Seriously? What if I mess it up?” It had been mostly a joke when you suggested it to March, but now that she’s offering, you can’t say you’re not tempted. It wasn’t a lie when you said you enjoy being a jack of all trades.
Vera shrugs. “Then I’ll fix it. Come on.” She gets the supplies ready and sits in her chair, instructing you on how to start.
“Why is the farmer dying Vera’s hair? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
He’s just about to start looking for you, a mocha in each hand, when Darcy’s innocent question causes March to turn his head so fast he might have whiplash. Sure enough, you’re standing behind Vera, your hands in her hair, the two of you laughing about something he can’t hear.
You’re right, he decides, right then and there as a warmth blooms in his chest from watching you. He feels some type of way about it.
“Dude, are you blushing?”
His eye twitches as he turns to glare at Ryis, who seems awfully smug for someone who’s about to get his nail order put on hold for a week. “Shut up! It’s cold!”