Friends With Time ⌛ (Tyler Galpin x Reader)

Day 25 (Part 2)

Day 25:

You wake to a Christmas surrounded by white, your finished Paris painting finally dry on the easel. You skip out of bed and hurry over to it, grabbing the edges of the canvas and holding it back at arm's length as you scurry out into the main room.

The Eiffel tower is gorgeous, all shining steel with gold accents from the setting sun above it. The grass below it- you couldn't remember if it was grass or a garden or just a mall- is twined into delicate flowers, each with more detail than the next, in sunset reds and pinks and burning oranges that complement the energy of the piece. And there, in front of the dazzling scene, you painted yourself, poised with an easel.

The TV clicks on behind you, and you freeze, the painting in your hands.

"What's that?" your mother asks, turning back to the kitchen behind her. "Charles, I said fifteen minutes on the ham. No, fifteen-"

You swivel around, trying to find something to stash the painting behind, but your mother turns back to you.

"It's a painting," you say, trying to casually tuck it behind your back. "You know. I paint. Who's Charles?"

Your mother nods approvingly, and points the phone camera over at a middle-aged man with a scar across his eye. He looks like he spends too much time frowning.

"We were on assignment together in Minnesota, and, Y/N..." she leans in, as if sharing the kind of mother-daughter secret that makes a Christmas morning. "I think I'm falling in love again."

You pull back as if you've been burned. "What? What about Dad?"

She huffs. "Y/N!" she scolds. "It's been years. You can't seriously expect me to be your mother forever. Besides, Charles, he gets it. He's realistic, Y/N. He does what has to be done."

Your heart twists painfully, and you swallow hard, staring down at the corner of your painting poking up from behind your back.

"He's climbing the ranks at USOAT," your mother continues proudly, leaning over her shoulder to sniff the sample of the ham he offers her. "No," she says to him, shoving it back in his hand. "Fifteen more minutes, Charles."

He moves out of the frame, and you can't help but feel an aching sense of hollowness flooding through you.

"Anyway, I called to say I have a Christmas gift for you," she says, clasping her hands in her lap. She pauses, and your hollowed-out chest begins to burn. "I've lined up your next assignment!"

The world freezes around you, your chest on fire. She's talking about it, talking about a nice little assignment on a city's action team, spending your days tracking-

"No!" you say, hand jerking forward before you can think. The painting thuds the ground behind you. "No, Mom, you can't. You can't do this to me. Please."

She pauses, a frown wrinkling her brow. "Y/N, please. It's an action team, and you'll be on it. A real agent, in a year, once you've-"

"No," you say, clapping your hands over your ears and shaking your head as if to make her words fall out of your memory. "No, I'm not going- I'm going to Paris. I'm taking off. I'm going to learn how to-"

"Are you crazy?" she snaps, scowling at the camera. "I came here to give you a present, Y/N, something I've scraped for months-"

"I don't want-"

"You're lucky they'll take you at all!" Your mother shouts, starting to get up from the couch. "Y/N, you are not in high demand right now. You proved yourself stupid, gullible, and weak. Show me your scars."