PAIRING: Michael Kaiser/Reader WORD COUNT: 2k TYPE: Established Relationship, It's basically just Kaiser tweaking for no reason đ¤Śââď¸đ¤Śââď¸đ¤Śââď¸ (I find it funny but interpretations may vary) WARNING(S): Kaiser's overactive imagination?
Kaiser would like to say heâs quite numb to being separated from you. Sometimes you come along with him at away games, if possible, but in other instances you have to be apart sometimes even for months, and Kaiser likes to think he manages it well.
Youâre not on his mind much when heâs training or during a game. Mostly his times of weakness happen outside of that, though Kaiser doesnât let it get to him. For example, he does this fun exercise where if his mind strays towards you too often or when he can sense the void in his chest is beginning to take on a suspicious shape, he holds out on texting or calling you for as long as possible. To test his will â which is something normal people do like all the time, of course â and because wanting to distract himself gives him extra neurotic energy to burn when heâs doing his exercises.
Not that Kaiser becomes neurotic over you or anything. Itâs not even a big deal to him.
Heâs sure you miss him more than he misses you. Heâs confident you do. After all, to him, itâs no big deal, as previously stated. Itâs true.
He doesnât worry about small and nonsensical things like how youâd probably prefer a more present and available boyfriend, and how youâre free to do whatever you want with remarkable ease when youâre seas and oceans away from him.
Kaiserâs eye twitches while he continues shoving the last of his belongings back into his luggage, since he needs to pack for his flight back home. This train of thought isnât going anywhere good â he needs to abandon it. Besides, a second with Michael Kaiser is worth way more than a month with some stupid, worthless commoner. Your shitty replacement for him will never rival the real deal.
No, this is stupid. You love him, you donât have a replacement for him. Right? You wouldnât betray him while heâs away. Youâre his first and only love, you canât do that to him, can you? You know heâd kill you if you did it and he found out, donât you?
This is stupid. He wouldnât kill you! Kaiser doesnât want to kill you. He should stop thinking about this⌠You wouldnât do it to him either anyway, you love him back. Kaiser knows you do, so why does it not feel real most of the time?
What if youâve fallen out of love with him, though? Maybe you look forward to when he has to go away for long. Forget all about him the moment heâs out of your sight, donât spare him a single thought, have fun with your little friends while heâs gone, all that.
You probably get together and you start shit-talking him with them the way people do about their good for nothing boyfriends sometimes. They call his haircut stupid and you cackle along with them, then you tell them how insecure and unlovable he really is, and actually his dad beat him as a child so now heâs barely human, how it makes him an arrogant and pretentious piece of trash pretender, and then youâre like âI wish I had a normal boyfriend instead of Michaelâ, and theyâre all like âyou deserve a normal boyfriend, this is fucked upâ, and youâre empowered to free yourself of your burden. So he comes back home and you pick him up from the flight and you break the news to him that youâre leaving him and he has to move his belongings back to his place.
Maybe you have a new fling already, but itâs nothing serious because you still need to dump Kaiser and all. And heâs like in finances or something, an accountant maybe, who works normal hours (not the overachieving workaholic type who stays behind to do extra), and he probably doesnât have footage of him having meltdowns on live TV for everyone to see. There are no interviews where heâs acting bitchy, no compilations of him acting cruel or âcrashing outâ or whatever else. And he probably grew up in an average household â they werenât rich or anything, but his parents made time for him. They were loving and nurtured him to be a rightful member of society, raising him to be someone worth your affectionâŚ
Holy shit does Kaiser feel unhinged. Literally why is he making up this entire story in his head? It never happened.
It didnât, right? You wouldnât do it to him, would you? You love him. You really, really, really love him, like from the bottom of your heart, somehow you love him and you donât want to hurt him, even if youâre probably sick of him being away and of his problems and his attitude and his everything. If you had a magic wand, he wagers youâd wave it and change him on a neurochemical level, keep his looks and his successes, but get rid of the unnecessary baggage.
Or would you keep him as he is and love that ugly thing? Can you? Do you have it in you? Are you just tolerating him for some monetary benefits or out of pity with your knowledge of his past? Do you still love him? Will you love him a few hours from now or are you going to get bored? Are you bored and antsy waiting for him and is it affecting your feelings, suffocating your love to zero each moment heâs not by your side, each reunion only serving to put off the inevitable? Is the novelty wearing off? Do you need novelty?
Kaiser fights off the impulse to write you a text message threatening suicide and then turning off his phone until the end of the flight to keep you on your toes. A flashy move in attention seeking for sure, but for one you donât even know heâs in a mind war with you, so youâre more likely to be confused than begging for him not to do it and for his forgiveness, though maybe it could earn him a reassurance of love and care. Regardless, Kaiser is not taking the chance because if you ignore him or donât see the message itâll just devastate him.
And also he kind of doesnât want to act like that. Well, he does, but the rational part of him is also still awake and holding him back. You wonât appreciate that. Right now the strife heâs going through is completely imaginary, but if he goes and acts crazy outside the confines of his mind, he really might fuck everything up.
If he makes too many mistakes, you might fall out of love with him, and if you fall out of love with him, youâll leave him. Kaiser thinks about what heâd do in that case. Without you he is nothing besides an unwanted waste of breath â youâre the sole person who got close enough to see beneath his nonsense and decide to tolerate it, attracted beyond frivolity for an enigmatic reason.
Maybe the perpetrator behind this strange limbo of weird hysteria is Kaiserâs low self-esteem. It always circles back to that and he is sick of it. He doesnât understand why you subject yourself to him and here, a whole ordeal.
Whatever anymore. Kaiser doesnât even care. Itâs a pointless matter to lose his mind over. He knows you cherish him, and even if you didnât, heâd get over it. Life moves on. There are other fish in the seaâŚ
Actually, if you tried to leave him, Kaiser has so many things he would do, theyâd earn him a restraining order. First heâd resort to begging and ugly crying, but he doubts itâd sway you. Heâd need to be more extreme.
No, thatâs silly. If you separated, heâd react to it like a normal person, right? He wouldnât do a thing. Heâd let you leave without any theatrics and move on. Right? Itâs what he would do, Kaiser decides.
Or maybe he can get a leg up on you and catch you out when you begin losing interest in him and he can work to win you back over. You wonât even know what hit you. Yea, Kaiser will scheme to sweep you off your feet.
Not that he cares that much to put so much effort in⌠Itâs just his strength and natural calling as an unbothered male manipulator.
___
After the packing and the waiting at the airport and all that, Kaiser survives a restless flight. He tried to read a book during it, but he turned out not to enjoy it whatsoever (catastrophe). Then he turned to Gesner, who was sitting next to him and seemed like he wanted to kill himself, and told him in detail about all the plot problems and why this was what made nonfiction superior.
To Gesnerâs relief Kaiser also spent a good chunk of it trying to sleep, though the endeavor was useless. He closed his eyes and his pattern of anxious cyclical thinking continued and he failed to doze off. What do you think about accountants? Maybe your side piece wouldnât have any tattoos because you secretly find his corny and youâve sworn off tattooed men. âI mean, seriously, just put the eyeliner on like a real man.â Kaiser would bet this is what youâre saying to your friends.
Anyway, again, his flight was spent stirring in ridiculous thoughts in that vein. If nothing else, actually, if you knew what was running through his head, that would be what would put you off of him. But you donât. He needs to just⌠keep it to himself and itâll be fine.
So you find each other after some stumbling and chaos and some vague text exchanges like âwhere are you?â, âAt the airport obviouslyâ, âyou think youâre so funnyâ, and so on, and when you spot each other, you grin upon the sight of him (hard to fake such immediate happiness, Kaiser concludes) and spread your arms out for a hug.
Kaiser rolls his eyes. Youâre so cute, he wants to squeeze you to death, but regardless he puts on a big show of what an inconvenience this is and gives you a stiff, nonchalant embrace. The way you hold him is a small reassurance. Youâre still in public though, so he needs to play it cool for a bit longer, and he reluctantly peels himself away from you.
You interrogate him about his time away while heâs your passenger princess on the way home. Kaiser takes it as a good sign youâre still interested in his life at least enough to ask, as if there was a possibility he was going to come back and you just⌠wouldnât give a fuck about him or what heâs been up to. He keeps his answers vague, trying not to let on the almost daily mental torment heâs been subjecting himself to just because his brain canât stop making up stupid narratives.
Once you two arrive, and only when youâre inside, does Kaiser give into his desire for your affection. He wraps you up in a way tighter embrace without intention of letting go and peppers your face in kisses.
The first time he acted like that with you upon coming back, you were rightfully weirded out, but now youâre used to this whole routine and let him have his moment of rare forwardness.
âYou know,â he says, âI missed you like, a little bit.â
âItâs hard to tell,â you say, sarcastic.
Kaiser ignores it. He bites your cheek. Not hard enough to hurt at all, but itâs a strange sensation.
âSo gross.â
âI hope you werenât doing anything stupid without me. I wouldn't want to miss out on any fun.â
âI wasnât.â
âWhat do you think about accountants?â
You raise an eyebrow at the random question, but humor him anyway. âCanât say I think anything in particular about them.â
âIs that soâŚâ
For some reason, you find his tone to sound suspicious? There is a harder bite â your skin might be a bit irritated around there for a few minutes. You wonder if Kaiser was arguing with management or something somewhere abroad.
___
I just wrote this because I thought Kaiser having emotional impermanence (which is likely) would be hilarious I promise I'll write a more plot-oriented one shot soon again