Remile Oneshots

Unexpected Lunch (Slight Angst/Fluff)

(TW:  Unhealthy relationship)

Emile Picani took a long sip of his tea as he scanned the room. His boyfriend was supposed to show up forty minutes ago. Emile had been sitting alone at a table by a window, patiently waiting. He had caught multiple people giving him sympathetic looks, and every time he had felt his face flush from embarrassment. It wasn't unusual that his boyfriend wasn't on time. In fact, it would have been more unusual if he had shown up on time.

Hot tears started to form in Emile's eyes. He had expected something like this to happen, but it still hurt. Emile lowered his head to look at his lap. While he fought to keep the tears from spilling out, someone entered the café.

"Holy sh**! I'm so sorry, baby." They said, hurriedly taking a seat across from Emile. Emile looked up from his lap saw a total stranger settling onto the seat across from his. Confused, he just stared at him. "You would not believe the traffic from here to Gainesville."

The stranger, who had now settled comfortably, was apologizing profusely even though Emile had no idea what was happening. People around the café were changing their sympathetic expressions to looks of relief and satisfaction. Emile was glad he wasn't being watched anymore, but he was still confused as heck.

"I'm sorry, who-?" Emile started to ask but was cut off by the stranger clearing his throat and leaning over the table.

"I'm Remy. Just go with it." He said under his breath, just loud enough for only Emile to hear.

"I... uh..." Emile was utterly dumbfounded. He had no idea why this guy was pretending to have been his boyfriend. "You don't have to do this."

"I know." Remy shrugged, looking over to the menu plastered above the counter. "Do you have any idea what you want for lunch?"

"Oh uh, I usually just have a PB&J. You don't have to have lunch with me though."

"I know." He nodded, digging into his messenger bag for his wallet. "I'll grab some food and be right back."

"Oh, please don't!" Emile panicked. "You don't have to do any of this. I'll just go home. It's fine."

"I'd like to have lunch with you if you don't mind. Please?" Remy sounded sincere, so Emile decided to let him have lunch together.

Time flew by as Remy and Emile chatted over lunch. It turned out that Remy had seen Emile with his boyfriend a few other times when they had gone to Starbucks. Speaking of Emile's boyfriend, he was still a no-show. It had been three hours.

"Hold up, hold up..." Remy chuckled holding up a hand. "You've been a therapist for how long?"

"Since I was twenty-three." Emile smiled before taking another sip of his third cup of tea. "I graduated high school at eighteen, got my bachelor's in four years, and got my master's in two."

"Damn. Alright, Mr. Smarty Pants." Remy teased. Emile laughed softly and held his cup in both of his hands. He let himself get lost in thought.

"Maybe there was a reason he didn't show up today... maybe this is the universe's way of... sending me a message."

For now, Emile decided to just enjoy the company of this sweet stranger. Well, he couldn't really think of Remy as a stranger anymore. They were, at the very least, friends now.