KEEP A PLACE FOR ME // Wilbur Soot X Reader

18

You tucked the space heater under your shoulder and nudged the car door closed, making sure your heard the click that it was actually locking this time. You adjusted the strap of your bag on your other shoulder from where it had been sliding off and made your way to the front door of the office building, opening it with your hip and pushing inside. 

The weather had taken a rapid decline in the past few days, and it had been nothing but cold, wind and rain. Usually you wouldn't bring your space heater in to the office until late October, but there was only so many days you could take spending hours in a tiny, freezing cold room. At least it wouldn't be so freezing cold now - the tiny thing you couldn't do much about.

You waddled down the hallway until your reached your office, where you had to put your space heater down to pull the key from your pocket, sliding it into the lock and twisting it until you heard the lock slide back. You opened the door with a foot as you picked up the space heater again and slipped into your office, the door swinging shut behind you.

You dumped everything on your desk, not bothering to take off your coat. It wasn't much warmer in here than it was outside - you would take it off after you got your space heater set up and the room was less like an icebox. 

You set it down on the floor under your desk, searching along the wall for an outlet. There was one not too far away, and you plugged it in, turning the little machine on. The mechanism began to whir, and a burst of lukewarm air shot from the vent. 

You took off your gloves and held your hands in front of the thing until they warmed up a bit. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long to warm up the whole room-

Next door, Wilbur shouted. 

Your heart fluttered. He was here today, which was a little unusual, as it was a Monday. Maybe you would run into him later, or he would come over to say hello. He'd been doing that more since his show, when he'd asked if you were friends, and it was actually really nice. It was almost like a daily dose of him, as odd as that sounded, but who would refuse seeing a very tall, very attractive, very smiley man with fluffy hair most days?

Wait.

You got up from the floor and plopped down in your chair.

Through the wall, you could hear Wilbur banging on his desk.

You shouldn't be so happy he was here. He was a friend. It was nice that he was here - but not that nice (unless you were that lonely, but you knew you weren't).  

You pressed your face in your hands. You really did not want to fancy this boy.

But how could you not? He made you laugh without even trying, and he was considerate and respectful and even though he was noisy he'd apologized thoroughly, and he had that sort of softness about him - the fluffy hair, the big round glasses, the cable knit sweaters, the acoustic guitar - that made him sort of irresistible. 

That didn't mean you weren't going to try and resist though. 

It would just be inconvenient - you had only just become friends with him recently, and you didn't exactly have the time to devote to the process of dating someone - it would be better to just wait it out like a sickness; until the feeling fizzled out and went away.

It would be better in the long run. You wouldn't have to worry about another thing on top of everything else, you wouldn't ruin this budding friendship with Wilbur, and you wouldn't have to endure Jazzy's teasing about the whole thing. 

You flipped your computer on and ignored the screaming that was floating through the wall. What was he even doing, honestly? Probably streaming again...

You could watch him if you wanted.

No, you were supposed to working, not watching Wilbur do... whatever he did. 

But then again, your computer was booting up, and you couldn't do any work if it wasn't even on. It wouldn't hurt to take just a quick look now...

You pulled out your phone.

His stream was easy enough to find after a quick search for his name. It took a moment to load in, but when it did, Wilbur's face appeared in the corner of the screen, laughing at something as he played Minecraft. 

His voice sounded different through your phone's speakers, and it was odd to hear the echo from the other room a second before it came through your screen, but it was nice to see his smile. He wasn't wearing his glasses for some reason, and it was a bit different than you were used to, but not bad. 

You computer lit up as it finished starting up, reminding you that you did have actual work to do. 

You paused. It wouldn't hurt to keep the stream running in the background right?

No, no, you had already distracted yourself enough. You bookmarked Wilbur's twitch profile before closing out of the screen and putting your phone back in your pocket. The room was starting to warm up now, so you shrugged out of your jacket and laid it aside before going to open your email and read through what you had missed last night.

You could hear Wilbur laughing in his office. 

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard as you typed out a response to the email you had just read, but your mind was elsewhere - namely in Wilbur's office, listening to him laugh and yell and thinking about his smile and how he would turn away from the screen if something too funny happened and he couldn't handle it-

You closed your eyes. Work. You needed to work.

You refocused on the screen in front of you, and realized that you had misspelled half the email and the other half was interspersed with words like 'smile' and 'laugh'. You sighed. 

It was going to be a long day.