Work Text:
The sounds of city life honk and buzz many stories below, going completely unnoticed from where you sit in your small living room, consumed by the agonizing way time ticks ever closer to 3 PM on your work laptop.
You count yourself lucky that you're able to work remotely. It certainly comes with its perks, such as having quiet (New York City quiet, anyway), unrushed mornings as you drink coffee, and staying cozy in your pj's at the start of the work day as you log in and check emails. And on warmer, sunny days, when the apartment you share with your boyfriend gets too stale and stuffy, you pack up and go work from the cafe down the street, or the library. A change of scenery that successfully gets you out of the house, and is still leagues better than being enclosed in the cold, corporate walls of an office building.
Today, though, you're home, and dressed in one of your nicer sweaters in preparation for the meeting you're hosting in just 30 minutes. A meeting that you haven't even prepped for, because you were once again saddled with a last minute task to train a couple of new hires that you haven't even met yet.
You really wished the managers were better at communicating things in a more timely manner. It would have been nice to have at least a day or two to mentally and emotionally prepare. Because it’s not the training itself you’re worried about -- you know the tasks that need to be done, you know the system your company uses well and can navigate it easily even if the website isn’t pulled up in front of you.
The problem is meeting new people. The problem is that this will be the new hires first impression of you, people you want to respect you, and how can anyone respect someone that’s very visibly a nervous wreck? How are they going to feel comfortable being trained by someone that doesn’t look confident?
“Whoa, you alright? Got the windows rattling with all that leg shaking.”
Your legs still when you hear Peter’s voice from where he’s seated behind you. You glance at him with a quick and quiet ‘sorry ,’ having forgotten that he was sitting on the couch with his own laptop open in front of him on the coffee table (which you got for a curbside discount).
The intensity of your frown is producing the beginnings of a headache. Elbows resting on the surface of your desk, you let your face fall heavily into the palms of your hands, and then use your hands to smooth back the skin of your cheeks, keeping the cool touch of your fingertips at your temples. The pressure of it does very little to alleviate the headache, but it feels better than nothing.
Peter gets up and walks over to you, concerned by the distracted apology and the glimpse of the deep frown he saw on your face, as well as the fact that one of your legs has immediately started bouncing again from where you sit.
He places himself at the side of your desk, in your field of sight so as not to startle you. He leans his hip against the side of it, careful not to disturb your stuff too much, like the monitor your laptop is hooked up to. From this angle, he can clearly see the anxiety framed between your hands on your face.
“Hey,” Peter tries again to get your attention, voice soft. “What’s got you so worked up?”
You peer up at him, blowing out a puff of air that raspberries between your lips. Peter’s wearing his thick, dark-rimmed glasses that you think makes his face look more boyish than wise, and the sight of it is nearly enough to calm you. His concerned expression is softened by his gentle-but-clearly amused smile; you know it’s not your distress that has him entertained, just the way the distress has altered your face.
You let your hands fall away and opt for slumping miserably forward on your desk. “I have a meeting,” you explain.
Peter merely raises his eyebrows, waiting for you to continue. You’ve had meetings before. They don’t usually stress you out.
You explain the situation, the last minute-ness of it all, and how this isn’t the first time management has done this, and certainly won’t be the last.
Peter nods, understanding. “Okay, so you’re stressed because you had no time to prepare.”
“Mmm,” your head tilts from side-to-side as you consider Peter’s words. “Not quite. I know what I’m going to do, what I’m gonna say -- I’ve done this before, with previous new hires. I mean, yeah, it sucks that my routine is being interrupted, but that’s more annoying than anything. Definitely not a cause for nausea.”
Peter crosses his arms, eyes narrowing in thought. “So if you’ve done this before, and you don’t feel ill-prepared, what’s got you so upset?”
“Me!” you groan. “ I’ve got me so upset. It’s- meeting new people is scary, Peter, even at this big age. I don’t even know what these newbies look like-” you gasp in realization, interrupting your own sentence, before continuing: “they don’t even know what I look like. And now I have to act cool and calm and collected in front of these strangers but instead I’m gonna stumble over my words because I get so damn shy-”
“Whoa, whoa,” Peter laughs, arms unfolding so he can stop your trembling hands from tearing off pieces of paper from your notebook. (You hadn’t even realized they were shaking to begin with). “Sweetheart, I don’t know why you’re so worried. You’re the coolest person I know.”
You blink at him, and almost laugh. How can he say that with his gorgeous half smile after the way you just babbled?
“Peter, I don’t feel cool,” you mumble, and you feel your eyes start to water as you search his brown ones. “I feel… I feel crazy. And inadequate. And like I’m about to puke.”
Because suddenly, you are overwhelmed and six-or-eight-or-ten years old again, and making friends is hard, and having to go up on stage for some weird play for social studies makes you realize that people will be paying attention to you, and you don’t do well when people pay attention to you. And how did you even get yourself in this position, where you’ve tricked the people in charge into thinking you’re good enough at what you do that you can show people?
“S’alright. I’m here,” Peter murmurs, his quiet voice delicately reducing the frenzy of your thoughts. “I’m not gonna let ya puke.”
Peter’s right thumb presses gently against your forehead, smoothing out the frown lines. His fingers continue to trail along the side of your face as they caress downwards, warm and tender and delicate, until his forefinger curls under your chin. In one nimble, breath-taking movement, Peter tilts your face up and steals a chaste kiss from you. A quick, buttery press of lips.
When he stands back to his full height, you are no longer frowning.
“There we go,” Peter grins. “Now that we got your face back to normal, we can tackle the stress. When does the meeting start?”
You glance at the computer. “30 minutes…”
Peter nods. “Perfect.” He walks back over to the couch and grabs his phone, quickly going through it. “Got headphones?” When you nod, he says, “good, put ‘em on.”
You do as you’re told, and Peter plugs the headphone jack into his phone. “You’re gonna listen to somethin’ relaxing for the next half hour and focus on breathing.” He hits play and places the phone down on your desk, walking away as the beginning notes of some calming instrumentals greets your ears.
By the time Peter comes back, you feel more mellowed out than you have all day. There’s some lingering traces of anxiety still buzzing under your skin, sure, but nowhere near as strong as before. The leg bouncing persists, but this time to the slow and steady beat of the music, no longer from the pre-meeting jitters.
Suddenly, Peter is placing a cup of your favorite tea down in front of you, in your favorite mug. The smile that erupts on your face is bright and grateful and amorous, and when you take a sip, the rest of your worries melt away. He made it just the way you like it.
When the meeting is over, webcam shuttered closed, the rest of the tension leaves your body in a great big sigh. There’s still an hour left in the workday, but that doesn’t matter so much right now. You stand up and walk away from your desk, with your notebooks and work clutter and favorite mug of half-drunk tea, and you slump next to Peter on the couch, who is already greeting you with his perfect, disarmingly boyish smile and glasses. He leans back away from his laptop, opens his arms to you so you can nuzzle in the safety of his warmth.
“How’d it go?”
You breathe in his familiar scent and hum. “Better’n all the other times. They even laughed at my jokes.”
“Jokes? I thought this was an important meeting, not a stand-up special,” he teases, lips brushing the top of your head.
“Ha, ha, Peter.” You roll your eyes, though he can’t see it. “Thank you, by the way. I’m lucky to have you.”
Peter presses a kiss against your hairline. He’s lucky to have you, too.