#because this first scene got LONG and then I wanted Shirayuki to dither a bit

[sabraeal]

Just a Second Away from Being In Love (Or Alone)

[Read on AO3]

Written for @another-miracle, who asked for any Obi POV in Wide Florida Bay-- but hopefully an obiyuki one 🤣. It actually took me a while to circle in on which one to pick; there's a few that I had my eye on earlier in the timeline, but when it came to obiyuki bits...I knew it had to be this one, which starts off a small mini-arc in the established relationship part of this fic!

It takes him two hours and two pounds of eggplant, but after five minutes of this newest crisis of morale, Obi finally gives in: he going have to use his Phone A Friend for this one. Or at least someone friendly. Ish.

“Tell me this is gonna be worth it,” he huffs, contorted into nature’s worst pretzel shape; his newest attempt to locate anything that could pass for another pie plate in this place. No way Doc’s lived here for three years without putting at least five of the most grandma-worthy vessels for piping-hot fruit somewhere in the cabinets. “Tell me this is gonna be the best thing I’ve put in my mouth my whole life. A fucking paradigm shift when it comes to food.”

“It’s eggplant parmesan. You’re gonna wish it was chicken.” Kelly Ann clucks her tongue, and god, she can be a thousand miles away, but he knows she’s got a knee balanced up on her desk, head tipped back because her eyes can’t roll far enough. “But you just spend half an afternoon drying the most finicky vegetable known to man, so you can’t turn back now. You’re committed.”

That’s the sort of talk that would have given him a life-threatening case of the hives years ago, limping around Atlanta’s unforgiving streets looking for an Urgent Care more quickly than taking a jab to the gut. But now he just asks, “But she’ll like it though, right?”

Kelly Ann sighs, already sick of him. “Yes. The poor innocent you’ve tricked into thinking you’re boyfriend material will think it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten. Even Cal’s officer buddies eat it, and they’re more picky than the four-year-old.”

“I dunno,” he hums, hand-pulverized breadcrumb scattering over sea foam ceramic. “She cooks really good. Have I told you about the Cornish hens? They—”

“I have heard all about the Cornish hens. I am sick of hearing about the Cornish hens.” Obi’s mouth twitches. Gotta be hard for her, having to share the pedestal for Gayle’s Favorite Child. At least with someone who isn’t her own kid. “What kind of guarantees are you look for here? That it’s going to get you laid? It will definitely get you laid.”

“Kelly Ann.” If his hands weren’t covered in egg, he’d be pressing one to his chest, scandalized. “I wasn’t— I’m not doing this for sex.”

She snorts. Which, frankly, he’s earned. But he’s turned over a new leaf. Become a new, better man. One who knows that the most important part of a relationship isn’t what happens between the sheets.

But it certainly helps hedge your bets, especially when you’re as much of a fuck up as he is. Hell, if sex was an option, he wouldn’t be here, debating which hand he’d used for the wet ingredients and which was for the dry. Oh no, he would have been far too busy making her see shrimp colors to worry about whether eggplants stayed crispier fried or baked. But since he’d had fallen for her absolutely genius— though, as Yuzuri warned, biologically inadvisable— beach-dinner-sex seduction strategy, Doc’s on the bench for the next quarter, sexy-time wise, and he’s—

Well, he’s got to show her he’s got talents out of the bedroom too. Or, er, off the couch. And shower. Sometimes even—

Ah, well, non-flat surface based talents. Cooking’s supposed to be one of them.

At least, it would be, if his eggplant slices weren’t eating floor. “How are you supposed to even get these slippery bastards over to the tray? They just keep— fuck.”

“Just go slow,” Kelly Ann informs him with an aggravating amount of patience. “It’s not a race.”

“I am going slow,” he snaps, gingerly transferring his next slice to the rack. “There is no possible way I could be going slower. I’m going to be here for days just doing this. Years from now, archaeologists will find my body and wonder why I’m only halfway through—”

“If there was an Olympic event for complaining, you’d take gold five years running.” She can tease him as much as she like, but there’s no bite to it anymore, no sharp teeth waiting to take a nibble. No, he’s pretty sure that the stretch on her vowels means she’s smirking; the closest thing to a smile when she’s aimed in his direction. “Maybe you should be doing this for sex, it sounds like you might need—”

“You keep this up and I’ll ask Gayle when you’re thinking you’ll have round two.” His mouth is all teeth as he adds, “After all, Laila would make such a cute big sister.”

He can’t see her, but he can hear her seething on the other end of the line. “I know where you live.”

“It’s a fourteen hour drive at best and I’ve got Mom on speed dial.”

Her scowl radiates from the speaker. “Fine,” she grits out. “Guess I’ll just have to tell her we’re waiting until number two could have a playmate.”

Obi blinks down at her picture. “Huh, Toddy’s found some girl? That’s fast. He was single at—”

“I’m not talking about Toddy.”

There’s enough silence in the kitchen to make his ears ring. “…What?”

“Oh, come on, Obi,” Kelly Ann sighs, as if he’s the one being obtuse. “The only people you two were fooling at Christmas were yourselves. And now you’re spending a whole day pampering eggplant to impress her?”

“I had a day off,” he murmurs, knees suddenly as solid as his egg dredge. “And I don’t think battering and frying count as a spa day.”

Kelly Ann grunt, unconvinced. “Sure, sure, we can sit here and have you deflect all day. But when it comes down to it…you’re serious about her aren’t you?”

As a heart attack. Which would be fine, if they weren’t barely two months in to the longest relationship of his life. “I think it’s a little soon to say that, uh…”

“That you love her?” His heart beats so loud in his ears he can hardly hear her ask, “You do, don’t you? Love her?”

“Yeah.” It’s a miracle he can even speak with his mouth this dry. “Of course I do.”

“Have you said that? With your Big Boy words?”

He has to press his hands against the counter to keep them from shaking. A strategy that would go better if both of them weren’t covered in egg gunk.

“Ah, gotta go,” he gasps, already reaching for a towel. “Making a real mess of all this.”

“Obi—”

The first finger clean shoots out, cutting off the call.

“There,” he sighs. “That’s enough of that existential crisis.”

*

The eggplant’s fresh out of the oven and sauce just off the heat when the door opens with a shush, his own personal problem stumbling out into the living room, trying to toe her sandals into the tray. If he weren’t elbow deep with this casserole dish, he’d saunter out to appreciate her attempts; there’s a lot on TV nowadays, but none of it can compete with Doc nearly giving herself a concussion trying to unlatch one of those little buckles. TLC used to say you learned something new every day, and listening to her grumble approach swears without ever intersecting, Obi agrees.

“Oh, really.” Most people might be happy just to hurl abuse at inanimate objects, but not Doc. Oh no, she’s got to reason with them.  “This sort of…of…tomfoolery is very…rude. I think you should just…stop…if you would…”

He waits until the first tell-tale clatter and clunk, to call out, “Welcome home.”

“Obi!” she yelps, and oh, he might not be able to see it, but he knows that shocked look: mouth as round as her eyes, skin flushed down to where it meets the swoop of her collar. Extremely kissable, is what he’s saying. “You’re here?”

A tap of the sauce spool sends a chunk of it skittering across the stove, but he grins anyway. “Am I not supposed to be? Did you have plans? Maybe even naughty—?”

“No!” It’s more of a croak than a gasp. “No, I mean…you’re supposed to be here. I’m happy your here. You” —her voice drops, soft, like her pillows— “belong here.”

He thought he’d known all the ways a heart could ache these past few years, but when she talks like that, ah, he’d never thought it could feel this good. Or this terrifying. “You’re not denying the naughty plans thing.”

And she still doesn’t, going so quiet a guy might get suspicious, if he didn’t know— keenly— that she was still in the shop. Taking her nice places and making delicious, boyfriend-worthy dinners has been great; a bigger rush than sex in a bathroom stall. But still, when most of their nights involve staying in, settling into the couch the way they always did, just with the new, heady knowledge that they both are wanting the same things…

Well, there’s been a few inadvisable make out sessions. Exciting ones, the kind that involve hands going under shirts and down pants and wearing hoodies in eighty degree weather the next day. But every time they wandered beneath her shorts— or, more than a few personally exhilarating times, skirts— the mood swerved off the rails, ending things before they— or well, she could get anywhere. After a three-year dry spell, Obi thought a few weeks would be a breeze, a quick breather between rounds, but after a month of having her moan his name at just the simplest touch—

It’s a special kind of torture, he thinks as the other shoe drops. Especially when Doc’s never been one to behave.

“You are home early.” Doc doesn’t often get the jump on him— in shitty childhood vs playful girlfriend, there’s a clear winner every time— but this time, when her sweet voice pipes up from his elbow rather than the galley window, he does. “And cooking dinner?”

“Yeah, I, ah…” She’s always been a curious little squirrel, skittering hither and yon, but when she leans around him to catch a peek of his hard work, her breasts brush against his arm, and, well— like he said. It’s been a long time. “Haah…just needed to let some data compile for a diagram. Thought it might do better on my laptop on our internet.”

He should be playing Tetris with these eggplant pieces right now, but Doc doesn’t make it easy, not with the way she tucks herself against him, her front pressed to his side, a burning line from shoulder to hip. “Are those eggplant?”

One small hand traces a path across his belly, just below his navel, and— and Obi can read a room. Really he can. It’s just not possible that she’s putting down what he’s picking up. “Y-yeah.” He clears his throat, willing it back into an actual, grown adult’s register. “I, uh, got the recipe from Kelly Ann. She…”

Her wrist twists, just enough to dip the tip of her finger beneath his waistband, and oh god, okay, he can’t take it. “Can we talk?” he asks, desperate, one hand gripped around her wrist. “Just for a second here. Because I…I need some clarification, I think.”

Doc flusters, every visible inch of her skin red as she tries to slip from his grasp. Which is absolutely not happening, not if she’s barking up the tree he thinks she is. “S-sorry! I just…I thought…”

One tug sends her careening back into him, every inch of her pressed against every inch of him. Or well, most of them. He's got ten or so that don't quite match up “I’m not complaining about the thinking here. I’m confused about the doing, because I thought we weren’t supposed to, er…”

Do the doing isn’t really where he wants to take this sentence. “I thought,” he starts again, a shade more collected, “that you were in the shop.”

“No.” Her cheeks flush so pink he’s half tempted to bite them, just to see what she’d taste like against his tongue. “I-I mean, I was. But I went to my doctor today, and um…?”

Every muscle in his body stiffens, tense like a cat ready to pounce. “And…?”

Doc might be bold enough to throw herself out windows and into swamps full of at least three of his most deadly fears, but at the twitch of his dick against her hip, her eyes skitter back toward the counter. “A-are you at a good place to stop?”

The eggplant’s going to get floppy in the sauce, and none of it will be as good as it would be if he finished getting this in the oven now, but he can hardly care, not when she lets out a delicious little gasp as she bumps into the counter.

“What exactly did the doc clear you for?” he rumbles, leaning in to give her parted lips the barest brush. “This?”

Her fingers clench at his shoulders, as frustrated as the moan that slips from her throat. “Obi…”

There’s a warning in that, a promise for what will wait for him if he keeps up his teasing, and it only makes his next taste all the sweeter.

“This?” It’s a whisper against her lips, one lost when she swallows it whole. Those fingers yank him down, trapping him in this endless drag of lips and tongue, each one teasing out another moan, another shiver, until he’s nearly drunk from it.

One of his palms scrapes up her side; the silky material of her dress catches on his calluses before he dips beneath it, her nipple already pebbled against his palm. “This?”

His mouth drops to catch it, and oh, if he thought she’d been close before, there’s nothing but cloth between them now, her body arched to fill the curve of his. “Obi!”

She’s trembling in his grip, only the arm at her back keeping her upright, and oh, it’s nothing to trace his fingers up her thigh, to trace the edge of her panties. “This?”

His only answer is a whimper and the bite of nails at his shoulder. It’s enough; he shoves them to the side, the small hairs there tickling his palms. And when the tip of his finger slips between her folds—

“Jesus. Fuck.” His forehead rests against her shoulder. “You’re…?”

Wet. Soaked. His mouth is too dry to get out the words. He doesn’t need to, not when she nods, wiggling against his hand. “Uh-huh.”

“Hah.” He licks his lips, hoping she can’t feel how he trembles now, every part of him drawn as tight as a bowstring. “How about this?”

His fingers dip inside, two sinking straight to the last knuckle. God, he nearly cums right there, from the noise she makes. “Is this what the doc cleared you for, Shirayuki?”

She whines, a pathetic, frustrated sound. One he’d be happy to tease out of her again, if she didn’t reach down and pump his fingers into her again, like he might need the help.

“Haah,” he breathes, hard. “Yeah, I think I can help with that.”

By the way she’s moving, it won’t be enough. Not nearly enough for either of them, not with his cock straining his jeans, soaking them where it’s trapped up against the band. He grinds against her hip, trying to get some relief, pulling her even tighter against him as his fingers work, and—

“Obi,” she gasps, pushing his shoulders away. “We eat on these counters.”

He’d argue that, if they weren’t already sharing space with dinner. Instead he leans in, giving her one, long kiss as he drags his fingers out of her. “Your room or mine?”

“Whichever,” she sighs, hopping up into his arms, “is closer.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #The Wide Florida Bay #lime #my fic #modern AU #college AU #ans #set just after Something Real (the beach date) #I had a whole very smutty part planned for the very end here but instead there is just a teaser for it #because this first scene got LONG and then I wanted Shirayuki to dither a bit #wrap around his legs like a cat in heat while he wondered whether he was getting a green light or was just colorblind #so just a little taste! #next time i have an opportunity to get to this mini arc there will definitely be smut #the plot bearing kind #🤣