Work Text:
You are damn tired of the Christmas spirit before you even make it to the inn. When your boss sent you on this stupid nothing trip, he had mentioned Stillwater was “a little festive,” but you had assumed that meant a cute little Christmas market, an ice skating rink, a big tree somewhere prominent, things like that. Normal things. You think that flashing reindeer lights on every storefront, every street being named something ridiculous like Sugar Cookie Lane or Gumdrop Street, and every single person wearing red and green is more than a little festive. It honestly feels like you’ve stepped into some horrible Christmas themed horror movie, complete with a cult that sacrifices children to Santa or something else ridiculous.
You by no means hate the holiday. It’s fun! You enjoy a nice snowy evening with your family, presents, the way people get a little more generous this time of year. But this? This is obscene. Something about it rings false, like all of this cheer is a performance. A competition on who can be the most obnoxiously pleasant this year. From what you can tell, it’s going to be a stiff competition.
At least the inn is cute, and has minimal flashing lights. There’s still a tree in the lobby and decorations around, but you have nothing against a nice garland or two. The tree is massive, sending the lovely scent of pine through the room. The ornaments are haphazardly thrown on, unevenly spaced and some clearly handmade. It’s charming, really, compared to the perfectly manicured monstrosity you saw in the town square.
There’s no one at the front desk, despite your check-in time being in less than five minutes. You try not to grind your teeth. You just want to put your things down and get to work. You want to go over the contract again before your meeting tomorrow, to make sure you have your pitch perfectly rehearsed. The town is reluctant to let a large corporation like yours move in as competition for local entertainment for tourists, you’re sure having a big name resort nearby will bring more business than they could dream of. The town economy has stalled, and the same small businesses the town council is worried about are at risk of shutting down from their near complete lack of customers. A large increase in tourists would bring new life to Stillwater.
It’s basically accepted already that they’ll turn you down, and you’re the company’s last hail mary. Your boss reassured you that failure won’t reflect poorly on you. That’s almost definitely not true. You’re sure this is an attempt to make your performance look worse so they can skimp out on your raise and bonus this year. You’ve played a key part in several major deals and acquisitions, so of course instead of rewarding you they want to tear you down.
You don’t know how long you sit here, tapping your foot, before you hear the door behind you creak open. You take a deep breath, trying to contain yourself so you don’t snap at the receptionist. You turn, ready to plaster your classic professional smile on your face, only to see possibly the most handsome man you’ve ever seen in your life with firehood thrown over his shoulder. He’s shirtless despite the cold, sweat dripping down his chest, his cheeks and nose a little red from the chill. His eyes are a warm brown, and they seem to catch the firelight as it flickers behind you. His cheeks are dotted with freckles, and as he smiles at you, you’re delighted to see he has dimples as well.
“Oh, hi! You must be our guest.” He kicks snow off of his boots, leaving a little pile of snow by the door, and strides past you to set down the wood next to the fireplace. “Sorry if I’m a little late, I lost track of time out there.”
You open your mouth to say something, but in that moment he reaches his arms above his head, stretching, showing off his defined back muscles. Instead of words, you let out a quiet squeak. It sits in the air between you for a moment, awkward and stilted, before he lets out a soft laugh that makes your heart flutter.
“Sorry, this isn’t exactly the kind of greeting you were expecting, is it? I’m not usually the one who works the desk, I’m more of a, um, physical guy.” He subtly flexes as he turns to face you, eyes shining with mischief. “I’m Ace.”
You think you manage to stutter out your name. He smiles at you, so you probably said something.
“Nice to meet you. I can grab you your key and bring you up to your room, if you’d like.”
“That’d be nice,” you say, reaching for your luggage, berating yourself internally for turning into a bumbling idiot at the sight of a pretty face (and body).
He clicks his tongue at you. “Oh, no you don’t.” He grabs your bag, easily throwing it over his shoulder despite the weight. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I let a guest lug something upstairs on their own?”
“I can carry it,” you protest weakly, both of you knowing you don’t really mind.
“I’m sure you can,” he says agreeably, continuing to carry it past you. “So what brings you to town?”
“Oh, I’m here on business.”
“What a wonderfully vague answer. Are you with the company that wants to buy up part of the mountain?” He doesn’t sound like he wants to immediately throw you out, which is a small blessing. With how reports made it sound, you thought you were going to be run out of town immediately for daring to show your face.
“That’s me.”
He slows to a stop in front of what you presume to be your room, throwing open the door to present one of the most charming views you’ve ever seen. Most of the floor space is taken up by the massive plush bed, stacked with so many quilts and pillows you think you could drown in them. A big cozy chair sits in the corner, facing toward a picturesque view of the very land you’re trying to acquire. You don’t even realize you’ve made a noise until Ace chuckles, and you realize you gasped when you saw it. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is,” you mutter, a little breathless. You’ve traveled a lot for work, but you rarely get to see unclaimed nature like this. It’s always concrete jungles or, on rare occasions, tourist-laden beaches.
“One of the best places in the world, I think. But I’m a little biased.” He gives you a boyish grin, showing off his dimples again.
“So you’re a local?”
“Lived here my whole life. My brothers and I grew up in those woods. I spent a lot of time falling down that mountain.”
You laugh, but the look he gives you makes you worry he might be serious. You don’t have time to dwell on it as your phone ruins the moment. You give him an apologetic look before stepping out, before he laughs and moves past you, gently shoving you back into your room. You can hear his boots land heavily on the stairs as he trots away.
You hardly get the chance to answer the phone before you get bombarded with bad news. Your meeting has been pushed back at least a week, and your boss seems to think the council will keep pushing it back until you give up. They clearly don’t want you here, or anything to do with the project.
“So should I reschedule my flight? I’m sure I can be back by tomorrow if I try.”
“No, no. Don’t give up just yet. Give it time, maybe they’ll come around. Actually, why don’t you push your return flight back a bit? It seems you might be there for the long haul.”
“Give it time? How much time, exactly? I can’t do a whole lot of work here, and I have other projects that need my attention.”
“Don’t worry about those, I’ll take care of them.”
Take care of them? God, he’s trying to trap you out here so he has an excuse to steal your work, isn’t he? “What? No, they’re my responsibility, I–”
“This is your responsibility now. Wait until you have an opening, then jump on it. And if it doesn’t work out, you can take a little time off. You have nearly all of your vacation days left, don’t you?”
“I’m not going to waste vacation days on a work trip. If I’m here on business, I’m getting paid for it.” You haven’t worked your ass off to get pushed around and get free work squeezed out of you.
“You’re salaried, what difference does it make?”
“It’s the principle–”
“Ah, a client is calling, I have to go. Good luck!”
“Don’t you dare hang up–”
He hangs up on you. You huff, nearly crushing your phone in hand in frustration. God, he’s insufferable. You always knew your boss wasn’t the best, but you didn’t think he’d try to stick you out in the middle of nowhere for however long this takes just to try to take credit for a couple projects. All of your current clients want to wrap up before New Year’s, which means they’re a done deal. All he has to do is shake their hand, maybe take them out to dinner, and he gets credit for a million dollar deal.
You storm down to the lobby, intent on finding some kind of comfort fast food or, failing that, a bottle of bourbon to drown your troubles in. Ace’s head pops up at the sound of you storming down the stairs, brow furrowed in worry. “Everything alright?”
“My boss is a dickhead.”
He chuckles, quickly trying to cover it when you glare daggers at him. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help?”
“Can you convince the town council to give me the time of day?”
“That’s…a little beyond me, I admit. Would a nice dinner be an okay substitute?”
You want to say no, that you need to get the hell out of this town come hell or high water, but he has the most beautiful eyes and the kindest smile, so instead you find yourself in a booth at a quaint little diner with a nice view of one of the eight thousand Christmas trees this town has on its main street. “You know, when I think of a nice dinner, I normally don’t think of diner food.”
He scratches the back of his neck nervously. “Yeah, well, it turns out most places need a reservation on a Friday during peak season. Who knew?” His cheeks are a little pink, and you can’t help the way your heart stutters at the sight. “But I promise, the food here is great. The cook is great.”
He’s right, as it turns out. You just order a simple burger, but you think it might be the most delicious burger you’ve ever had. You laugh more than you have in a long time as you enjoy dinner with Ace, watching him wolf down food so fast you’re genuinely worried he might choke.
“You sure you don’t wanna slow down?”
“What, you worry–ack!”
You almost choke laughing at him as he hacks, ears turning pink from sheer embarrassment.
“That doesn’t normally happen.”
“Uh huh.”
“I mean it!”
“I’m sure you do.” Your cheeks hurt from smiling. You don’t know the last time you felt this relaxed. Usually your life is work, coming home to sleep, then waking up to head right back to work. You’ve always told yourself you were just investing in your future, that it was worth it, but god, is this what you’ve been missing out on?
“So how long are you in town?” You tell yourself he looks a little hopeful. It doesn’t hurt to dream.
“Indefinitely.”
“I–what?” He stares at you a moment, eyes searching your face for any trace of humor, but he finds nothing. “You’re serious. I thought you were here on business?”
“I was supposed to be. My boss is using this excuse to get me out of the way, I guess.”
“Are they at least…paying for this? Like for your room?”
“Supposedly.”
He hums for a moment. “So you just had a bunch of time open up, basically?”
“I guess?”
He gives you a beautiful, goofy grin. “Do you want someone to spend it with?”
Oh, your heart might actually explode. You’re only able to pull yourself together because he’s staring at you expectantly, hopefully. “I…think I’d like that.” You try to pry the shy smile from your face and the warmth from your cheeks, but they’re firmly stuck there. No hiding your obvious joy.
His grin grows impossibly wider. “Great! Good, I mean. Because I have a lot of free time right now too, and I’d love to help you explore. It might seem like there’s not a lot to do here, but I promise you’ll have a lot of fun.”
A small part of you whispers that you should fight back against your boss, leave now to call as many people as you can so you can get home, back to your comfortable and boring routine. You tell that part of you to shut the hell up.
You find yourself in a botanical garden, filled to the brim with plants you’ve never seen before in your life. There’s hardly anyone here, leaving you and Ace feeling like you’re the only two people in the world. You can’t say you mind.
He excitedly chatters about every little thing, from his childhood spent traversing to the woods, to his brothers, his boss (whom he clearly admires), and a long list of friends you definitely won’t be able to keep straight. He’s clearly a man with a lot of love in his life, both received and given.
You pretend not to notice when he slips his hand in yours halfway through a story about Luffy falling out of a tree directly into a patch of brambles. You squeeze his just for a second as he describes coming home covered in blackberry juice, cuts, and leaves, laughing so hard you fall into his shoulder. “You came home purple?”
“Yeah, Dadan was furious. She made a big show of making us scrub our clothes ourselves, because she wasn’t going to fix our stupid mistakes, but she ended up patching them up herself when she thought we weren’t looking. She couldn’t quite get the stains out of Sabo’s white shirt though.” His smile is fond, gentle and small and dripping with nostalgia. “I miss living at home. I’m only a couple minutes away, but it feels so far sometimes.”
“Well, when you’re used to sleeping in the same room, I bet even a few feet can feel like a thousand miles.”
“It does!” He chuckles self-deprecatingly. “It’s silly, but it’s true. Not having everyone right next to me still feels wrong, somehow.”
He asks you about your life, too, but you can’t bring as many fun anecdotes to the table. It’s all business dinners and late hours at the office and considering picking up smoking just for the excuse to take a small break. You try your best to spice up what few stories you have, but misery drips from every word. When did your life get so damn sad?
You’re silent as you stare up at the glass ceiling, the sun refracting through every pane to paint the room gold. You’re not used to being able to enjoy a sunset like this. Every golden hour for you has been spent in an office with the curtains drawn, LED bulbs raining down white instead of this soft orange.
“Do you like your…job?” You can hear the unspoken word in his hesitation, of course. Do you like your life? Do you really want to live like this?
“I used to think I did, but…I don’t really know anymore. I don’t think I do.” You don’t want forty years of instant ramen at midnight because you don’t have the energy to cook anything else. You don’t want the delivery guy to know you by name because he sees you so damn often. You don’t want an eternity of shitty coffee on a train that reeks of sweat and despair, because it’s filled with a hundred people just like you who never got out. God, you want to get out. “I think I hate it.”
“I know we just met, and I’m not really in the place to be giving you life advice, but…why don’t you quit?”
“I have bills to pay.” It’s a simple answer, an irrefutable one.
“If you had help, would you do it?”
“Help?” You finally look away from the endless expanse of orange sky to look him in the eyes. They’re catching the light more than the windows were, letting it dance there and making his brown eyes seem impossibly warm and comforting.
“If you had someone to help you get out, would you do it?”
He can’t be offering what you think he is. “I…think I would.”
“I have a spare room.”
He can’t be serious. “You can’t invite a stranger you met today to stay in your house.”
“Maybe you can’t. I’m a real rebel.” He chuckles, but you’re still staring at him, mouth agape. “No, really though, I’m serious. You don’t have to pay rent until you find a job here, and I could help with that, too. I’m sure there’s someone in town who could use some help with drafting documents or something, if not something a little closer to your expertise.”
“Why would you help me?”
“Because you seem like you need it.” He looks away suddenly, cheeks a little pink. “And I’ll admit I’m hoping you accept, because you’re really pretty and nice and I’d like for you to stick around so I can get to know you better. But that’s not why I offer, and even if you have no interest in me at all I’ll be happy if you take this chance, because I really just want to help you. I have a few friends I could ask if you would prefer to stay with someone else, even. I just…hate seeing people stuck somewhere they shouldn’t be. No one should stay in a bad situation because they feel like they have to.”
It’d be pretty insane to accept this invitation, you know. Your years of work, of digging yourself up from rock bottom into something resembling success, of telling yourself it’ll all be worth it, they’ll all amount to nothing. But some terrible tender hope flutters in your chest when you had long since thought it died, so you can’t quite bring yourself to deny it. “Sure.”
His eyes shoot back to yours. “Really?”
You laugh despite yourself. “I’m surprised too. But…yeah. I want to stay. I want help. I can’t do this anymore.”
You’re very proud of yourself for keeping your composure despite the deep waves of relief and fear that wash over you in equal measure, threatening to drown you. Your voice doesn’t crack, you don’t shed a single tear. But then Ace throws his big stupid arms around you and pulls you into the best hug you’ve ever received, and suddenly you’re bawling like a baby, staring up at the sun, watching it slowly disappear behind the horizon knowing you have hundreds more ahead of you.
It’s terrifying, and it’s going to be hard. But as Ace assures you a dozen times on the walk back to the inn, you’ll have someone to catch you. Maybe that’s all you ever needed.