Stephew One shots

Darling (Part 1)

Hello my beautiful friends! I shared this picture on twitter and asked if I should make a one-shot out of it. So many people said yes! So here is part one out of two. I had two ideas of what I could with this prompt. I liked both ideas so much that I decided to do both! I shall warn you though. The next two one shots are going to have some angst. Don't worry it ends fluffy but it needs the angst to get there. With that being said enjoy! ~Gem 

It was the late one Monday afternoon when Jason, Chris, the rest of the theorist crew, and I started to worry about Matthew. He had been in the recording closet for about eight hours. He had said he wanted to do some bulk recording which is something he did often. However, he never took this long. To add on to that it was nearing 4 pm pacific time. It was almost time to live stream and Matthew still wasn't out of the closet. 

"Jason. Chris. I am going to go get Matthew. Can you please get ready for the stream?" I asked my friends as we sat in the live stream room waiting for my beloved husband.

Jason and Chris looked at each other and seemed to be having a silent conversation between the two of them before turning to me. We all knew Matthew was acting off all week. He did his best to put his best foot forward and putting on his brave face. However, we saw through it.

"Good luck Stephanie." Chris replied giving me a sad smile.

"We have everything covered." Jason added reassuringly. 

"Thanks you two." I said as I stood up.

I walked to the bedroom and to the door of the recording closet. Usually you could hear Matthew's enthusiastic voice coming from that room when he is in it. Instead it was quiet. It was odd. 

"Matthew?" I asked rapping my hand against the closet door.

I heard sniffles coming from the other side of the door.

"I am coming in." I said slowly opening the door.

I found Matthew curled up in the corner of the closet. Clothes were hiding him away from the rest of the world as the light of his computer reflected off his face making the tears that stained his cheeks more apparent. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were puffy and red. He looked like someone took his heart and shattered it. Seeing him in this state made me want to cry.

"Matthew, darling, what's wrong?" I asked quietly kneeling down next to him.

"Stephanie... I am not good enough." Matthew said looking anywhere but at me.

"What do you mean?" I asked quietly. Where was this coming from?

"I guess the YouTube comments are getting to me. I feel so sick to my stomach lately. I don't like who I am. I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. I feel fat and sluggish. I feel like I am so bland compared to everyone else. It's really disheartening. I don't feel like I am good enough to be your husband. I don't feel like I am worthy of the theorist community. I feel like I will never please anyone! There is a never ending to-do list of scripts, research, emails, projects, side-projects, and so on that I feel like I will never finish.'' Matthew blabbered on starting to cry again.

My heart broke as I silently pulled Matthew into a hug rubbing his back. He wept into my shoulder and his body was shaking. I did my best to comfort him in this moment. Eventually he stopped sobbing and the tears became slower to fall yet still falling. Releasing him from the hug I switched to holding his hands. This captured his attention. His brown eyes looked into mine.

"Darling, open your eyes. You are not made up of the words that hurt you. Or that number on the scale. Or the expectations you feel you will never meet. You are made up of nothing more than you. Simply, beautiful, wonderfully, uniquely you. You are a lovely and complex soul. An individually fascinating combination of thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions. No other is beautiful as you. Look past the mirror. Look at your soul. Only then you will see yourself as you truly are. Beautiful. So smile and don't forget to love yourself." I whispered to him hoping to take away at least one of his demons that filled his mind.

I know that some of that I said came out of left field. However, I know that is something that he needed to hear. 

Through the tears Matthew started to smile. It was small at first but grew and grew. He began to straighten himself up by rubbing his cheeks making the tear tracks seemingly disappear. He attempted to fix his hair and fixed his clothes. 

"Stephanie. Thank you so much! I can never tell you with words how much you mean to me and how your words helped me." Matthew responded to me pulling me into a tight hug.

"It is the least I could do with all you do for me." I replied with a soft smile. "Now come on darling. It is almost  time for GTLive. Chris and Jason  along with the theorist community are waiting."

"You are right! We should get going." Matthew smiled and held out his hand to me.

I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet.

"I love you so much." Matthew said leaning down to kiss me on the cheek.

"I love you too!" I replied giving him a quick hug before pulling him to the live stream room. We still had a stream to do.