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Moments >> Griff X Reader

But then, the bell rang. Just your luck.

You were about to force on your best most patient smile, when you noticed it wasn't just a run of the mill average busybody trying to haggle down the art to something less. It was the guy, with the tattoos, and in his hand, he gripped the umbrella.

"Come to return it." He nodded toward the umbrella, holding it toward you.

Sliding from the stool, you approach him. Inside the art studio, he was taller (or maybe it was because he was standing this time), and he had a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses tucked into the lip of his stonewashed tee, and all you could think about was how real and alive he looked in comparison to all the dull tourists you greeted and your terrible boss and the greyscale people who littered the town like paper-cut outs of real people, and you stood there, silent, sort of dumbfounded for a second.

"Nobody has – thank you," you remember what words are like to come out in the right order from your lips, taking the returned umbrella from his hand. "If I had a dollar for every time I leant out the store umbrella..."

"I bet you could afford a lot of umbrellas, ma'am," he interjected, voice gravelly, but sweetened by his manners like honey. "I also came to say thank you."

You raise a brow, protesting, "Sir, it was nothing, really –,"

He clears his throat, placing a fist against has lips. In this moment, you read that his fingers read sand on that hand, and your eyes graze over his edge of his facial hair, where a nick from a razor has given him a little cut. "Please," he pleads, "at least let me take you out for coffee." He says it with that Atlantan accent that just makes your ears and heart sigh.

"You can take me out, sure," you tell him, crossing your arms with the umbrella tucked beneath your armpit, "but I know a fantastic little place downtown, Penny Lane. Their cappuccinos are to die for." You beam.

He sticks a hand out to you. "Deal." He grins. "The name's Griff."

You place your palm against his, and shake his hand. "Nice to meet you, Griffin. I'm ________."

It's a wonderful little afternoon that you've managed not to be at the store, or at university, and you find yourself in your newly polished shoes, your Sunday best, and a little coat for the weather this time of year. You agreed to meet outside Penny Lane, but it was almost ten minutes after you had promised to be there, and Griff still wasn't around.

"What did I expect..." you sigh to yourself, turning to go.

But it's then you hear a roar of a motorcycle, and looking over your shoulder, you see him. He's on a cruiser, the colour of blood when it's dried, or brown paint that's slowly hardening upon canvas. It approaches quickly, and pulls into a spare parking spot, and tossing his helmet aside, Griff's eyes meet yours.

"Sorry I'm late," he apologises. "Work can be unpredictable."

You look at the bike, glimmering in the sunshine like a jungle animal resting after a successful hunt. "Must be good work to afford a bike like that," you motion toward it, impressed. As a dirt-poor student artist who dreamed of owning a car and not taking the bus in every day, it was like finding out that someone was practically an A-Lister with all they had. "Still want coffee?"

Griff grinned. "Hell yeah."

Six months later, you wake at two in the morning to an empty bed and an intense argument in the next room. At first, you think nothing of it – you came from a blended family, and divorce only naturally included a little fighting. At first you think it's just Griff on the phone to his family. But then you hear a second pair of footsteps, a second voice; one you've never heard in your life.

"Of course, I haven't told her," you hear Griff's voice say. "I ain't a saint, but I'm no idiot."

"Good," another man intones, the clink of glass on the bench. "Let's keep it that way."

You hear the front door to Griff's flat click closed, the snap of the kitchen light switches off, footsteps retreat through the other room toward where you lay. You close your eyes, keeping your breathing shallow, soft. The footsteps approaching are muted, and slowly, the bed dips with his weight, the covers shift over his form. His hand finds yours beneath the sheets, and cold, his fingers graze over yours, stroking gently.

"I'm so stupid..." he murmurs, voice low, breath warm on your cheek as you feign sleep. "He promised me money, and I wanted to make something for us, a future...I'm not a bad guy, ________."

Your hand moves on its own, fingers twitching. Griff recoils. You shift in the bed, turning to face him. His face is lit dimly in what moonlight and streetlight that filter through the curtains, his ink dark against his skin, eyes move to meet yours.

"Griff?" you whisper. "What time is it?"

His hand loosens over yours, "It's too early for us to be up." He turns in the sheets, facing away from you. "Go back to sleep."

You consider confronting what looks like something that most certainly is in over your head, or just following the lead of your partner, and turn over yourself. It's not hard. You pursued the man who had been sitting in the rain, you had pursued something beyond your little life. And you pursued this.

"I...heard you." You whisper. "In the kitchen." You hear his breathing hitch. The mattress squeaks as he turns over, and once again, you're face to face with the dark eyes you can't shake out of your heart. "Griff, it's...I'm with you, to the end of the line. If you stay doing whatever you're doing, I'm with you, if you want to leave...I'll come," you breathe, your hands cradling where his neck meets his jaw, where his facial hair is growing longer. "I love you."

He's silent for a moment, and then, "You're too good for me," he murmurs.

A week later he returns from a job, throws his leather jacket onto the couch, along with the keys to his bike. In a shopping bag he holds is a bottle of hair dye, an electric razor, and a burner phone. They're for the both of you – in the bathroom, you take turns lathering dye into your hair, you chip away at Griff's beard until there's nothing but empty skin.

"You look different," you stroke a hand over his face, in awe. In the mirror above the sink, you see the dye is taking to your hair.

"A good different, or...?"

You smile, and go to kiss his bare cheek. "Definitely." You motion to the shower, and add, "I'll go wash this out. Promise you won't leave me if I look like a train wreck."

Griff laughs. "We'll be matching, then."

Not four hours after that, you're both on the road, ties cut, life free and world at your fingertips. Grad school can wait. That horrible job selling terrible art can burn in a trash can. You'll find work somewhere, perhaps as a housepainter, or maybe a tattoo apprentice. Griff could be a security guard. These thoughts pass as you're clutching his back, flying down the highway away from all you've ever known, toward something you're never going to regret.