#i settled on arsene lupin because there's a france AND a new france so the french language has to still exist right

[sunflowersturn]

I wish you would write a fic where Lee helps reader forget about her problems for a little bit, maybe he tells a story or just cuddles with her or something along those lines. Just pure fluff

Yeah... I think I can do that

title: Distractions

summary: You need a bit of distracting, and Lee knows just how to do that. All of the fluff. It's like a Persian cat and a ragdoll had a baby.

warnings: gn!reader, enough fluff to cause a choking hazard

word count: 1863

You didn’t know how long you’d been staring at the letter when Lee finally pulled it from your hands. You almost didn’t react at first—you’d been sat in the same place, staring at the same thing for so long that it took a moment to register that the letter was even gone—but when you looked up, there he was.

“Lee!” you exclaimed, reaching up a hand to grab it back. He pulled it out of your reach and you huffed at him. “What are you doing? Give it back!”

Now that your concentration had been broken, you could finally start to take in the details around you. It had gotten dark at some point in the past few hours, enough so that Lee had lit the lanterns, and the clouds were rolling gently through the moonlight, some ten-odd meters below the basket of the balloon. You didn’t know how you hadn’t noticed the chill of the wind as the sun sank below the cloud level, but almost as soon as the thought crossed your mind a shiver rolled down your spine.

“Normally I’m not one to poke about in another person’s business,” Lee said, and ignored the flat look you gave him at the blatant lie. “But given the fact that I’m pretty sure a one-page letter doesn’t take hours to read, I’m going to say this isn’t exactly good news.”

He glanced between the letter in his hand and your face and for the first time since you’d sat down to read that afternoon, you really took in his face. He hadn’t had the opportunity to shave with water for a couple of days now, leaving him a bit more stubbly than he would have liked. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced from sleeping on the bench or the bedroll instead of on a real mattress, and his clothes were creased from wearing them for as long as he hadn’t been shaving.

It was absolutely ridiculous how handsome you found him, even sleep deprived and a little sloppy, but you clung to the thought as a welcome distraction from the letter Lee still had clutched in his hand.

“It’s nothing, honest,” you told him, holding your hand up for him to hand the letter back. When he didn’t you wiggled your fingers. “Come on, isn’t it illegal in Texas to read someone else’s mail?”

He didn’t respond to the joke or lower the letter, instead just raising one of his eyebrows at you. Hester hopped up on the bench beside you and despite being completely different species, their expressions were exactly the same.

“You’re normally not this quiet. What’s wrong?” she asked, and the clear concern in her tone told you well enough how they were both feeling at the moment. You glanced back up at Lee and knew from the set of his jaw that he wasn’t going to budge

You had to bite back a sigh as you shared a glance with your own daemon, and finally dropped your hand. “It’s just...you know, stuff from back home. Things that I forgot about.”

When you’d left home to travel with Lee, you’d had a whole life you’d left behind. Though you visited (infrequently) and sent money back (when you had it to spare) and exchanged letters with people back home (if you remembered), it was actually pretty rare that your old life intruded on your new one. You had too many things to do and places to go and people to see when you were traveling with Lee, and sometimes those distractions included such thrills as running for your life or trying to talk down a bounty hunter from taking the only person who knows how to fly your method of transportation.

The letter had been expected—it had been a while since you’d visited the post office box you’d rented for this very purpose—but the contents were not, and there was little you could do about the problem they presented. You’d so looked forward to opening this letter and getting some word from home, and now...

“D’you want to talk about it?”

Lee’s voice broke you out of your thoughts and you looked up once again to see that he hadn’t moved. He was still staring down at you, worry shining out of those pretty eyes of his, his mouth and mustache tilted down in a thoughtful frown, and your heart melted a little bit at the look.

“No, not really,” you found yourself saying. You really didn’t. You just wanted to put the issue out of your mind for now and focus on something else. Anything else. You sighed and rubbed a hand over your eyes. “I could really use a distraction, though. Do you still have that copy of Lupin?”

Lee hummed. “I think I’ve got it somewhere around here. Why don’t you stretch a bit while I look for it? You haven’t moved in hours, sweetheart.”

At his behest you got to your feet, and immediately you groaned as several bones clicked at once; both of your knees and at least two in your back. You could hear Lee snorting to himself and decided it wasn’t worth the huff he’d work himself into to point out that he was even more creaky when he stood up than you, instead choosing to walk around to the other side of the basket and stretch out your legs. When you lifted your arms above your head, you felt another bone in your back pop.

“You’re so old,” said your daemon with a quiet little chuckle, and you swiftly proved that maturity does not come with age when you stuck your tongue out at them in response.

There was a bit more rustling going on behind you than you would think it would take to look for a book, but by the time you had turned around to see what was going on, Lee had already finished what he was doing. He saw you looking and his face lit up in a bright smile and he waved you over.

“C’mon,” he said, and once you got within touching distance he had an arm wrapped around your shoulders to lead you over to the little nest of blankets he’d made on the bench.

“Lee...” you said, voice soft and a little wondering. “You didn’t have to do this.”

He didn’t seem to hear you. Instead he busied himself with wrapping a blanket around your shoulders, checking to make sure it was positioned just so, and then he took a seat on the bench and patted the space between his legs, gesturing for you to come and sit with him.

On any ordinary day, you would have been flustered beyond belief at such an idea, but it was a testament to how much that issue at home was weighing on your mind that you only hesitated a moment before you followed his direction. You sat with your back to his front, wrapped in the Texan quilt, and felt his arms coming up around you to get you settled properly, encouraging you to lean back against his chest and settle your head into the curve of his shoulder. The combination of the quilt and his arms made you feel plenty warm, and you were sure your heart was beating a mile a minute.

This was definitely a distraction from the letter, that was for sure.

Once he was satisfied that you were comfortable, you felt Lee shifting behind you. His leg was stretched out on the seat in front of you, boot twitching as he moved around, and when his hand appeared in front of you again, he was holding the book you’d been asking for.

“Found it!” he exclaimed, and the cheek in his voice had a ghost of a smile beginning on your face. Instead of handing it to you, he opened it himself and started flicking pages. “Where did you leave off?”

It took a moment for what he meant to sink in, and this time you did get flustered. You started to shift, trying to sit up, but the way was blocked by the arms he had wrapped around you, connected by the book he’d flipped open to the table of contents.

“Lee, you don’t have to—” you started again, but he shushed you softly and cut you off, letting go of the book with one hand to encourage you to lay down your head once more.

“Where did you leave off, darlin?” he asked again. Out of the corner of your eye you could see that Hester had also blocked in your daemon, settling down right up against them with her paws curled underneath her and her eyes closed, like she was settling down for a nap.

Your daemon looked up at you with a helpless expression in their eyes, and you could only give them the same look back from your position. The two of you were powerless to fight back.

“Um, I was on the fourth story,” you said quietly, and Lee hummed as he turned to the correct page.

With your ear pressed up against his chest, you could hear him humming like it was in your own head and you closed your eyes for a moment as the sound washed over you. He didn’t have the deepest voice but it was melodic and lilting, and hearing the echo of it in his chest as he spoke was soothing. Though you’d only intended to shut your eyes for a moment, you were finding it increasingly difficult to open them again.

“Okay, this one is The Mysterious Traveler,” Lee murmured above your head, and then he started to read.

Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar was probably not your best choice for a distraction, as it was a book you’d read a few times before, but with Lee reading it to you it was a new experience entirely. He kept his voice low and soft, his pace was steady but not too slow, and after a few minutes he got tired of holding the book up with both arms and moved it to one hand, leaving the other one free for Lee to wrap it around your waist and hold you to him more securely.

Between the familiar story unfolding and the warmth of the blanket and Lee’s arm around your waist it was only a matter of time before you started to fall asleep. You fought it as long as you could, wanting to enjoy the feeling of being held, of being read to, of being cared for, but the pull was just too strong.

When he could feel that your breathing had finally settled and you were asleep, Lee gratefully dropped the arm holding his book to his side and let out a deep, relieved breath. Hester’s ears flicked, amused at his predicament, and Lee watched as she settled herself even deeper against your daemon, this time truly getting ready to go to sleep. He looked down at the top of your head again, a fond smile on his face, and he gently pressed a kiss to your hair.

In your sleep, you finally smiled.