Parings: Valentine "Val" Fehr x Reader (A.K.A, you), Reader is gender-neutral!
Warnings: Nothing really! One mention of scars, and some cursing. Also a bit longer than I thought it would be. Notes: Reader is eccentric and a bit pushy, Val is a nervous wreck. Shitty and (probably) repetitive writing, Strangers to friends to crush to loverrrrsss! This is the first part, so this includes your first meeting and your friendship stage! (With a hint of growing romantic feelings towards the end...)
((Heyyy artist/writer here! Finally decided to do this because I've been wanting to for a while sooo.. I hope you enjoy! And there will be a seconded part!
This is also my first time writing something like this, so please excuse how shitty this might be.))
-For your first meeting, you would probably meet them through a mutual friend of theirs. (Also just a note, they would be wearing their mask when you first meet.)
-VERY nervous and quiet the first time you meet them.
-Like stuttering and freezing up nervous.
-Also, your friend probably does have to specify that Val's gender neutral/unlabled. They do look very confusing with their short hair.
-After a few hours of being around you though they start to loosen up a bit. (This does depend on how comfortable they are.)
-They become less nervous and more talkative.
-Although, they don't completely open up. They seem to just listen to you and your friend more than anything.
-Once you notice them just staring at you while you talk, you decide to ask them a question instead.
"Soooo.. Val.. You have any hobbies?" Val blinks at you, caught off guard at the sudden question. They sigh, shifting in their seat. "A-Ah.. Ja.. I-" They pause, thinking to themselves. "I-I like to draw."
-Most questions they got asked they would either ignore, or shift the focus away from them.
-They aren't trying to intentionally be or seem rude by doing this though.
-Since they have a strong accent, and since English isn't their first language, some things they say aren't exactly coherent or pronounced correctly.
-That's one reason why they stutter so much actually.
-So there's probably a few times where you would have to ask them to repeat themselves.
-Whatever you're doing, you notice the scars on their hands and arms, which keeps you wondering about them...
-Val would definitely have to leave early for some reason. Most likely because they're too tired, or surprisingly, have other things to do.
-So right as they start to leave, you decide to give them your number!
-This baffles Val. But in a good way.
"Hey, Val!" You call out to them as they start to pull their jacket back on. They turn to look over at you, an eyebrow raised. "Hmm?" They hum, rolling up their sleeves as you pull out their phone and hold it out in front of them suddenly, making them flinch slightly. "Wha-" "Do you mind putting your number in my phone? I wouldn't mind having a one-on-one hangout with you!" You smile at them, continuing to hold your phone in front of them. They stare at you for a moment before hesitantly taking your phone.
-It takes them a minute, but they eventually get their number and name in.
-Now you have them in your phone, which they put themselves as:
-Butttt...
-You decide to change their name to something you liked more:
-You had seen a lot of their tattoos, which had lots of stars, so you added some space emojis for a theme.
-Once you guys become better friends, which I would say would take a few months, Val started to open up bit by bit.
-Still very self conscious about what they would say or tell you though, still doesn't want to fuck up miss an opportunity to have a really good friend.
-Around this time you would finally get to know that they work in the military, which explains why sometimes they wouldn't be home for days, even weeks, at a time.
-They probably missed a few important things you might have planned out...
"I'm so so so so so sorry I missed it.. W-We can always g-go see another movie.. right? I mean I-I could even pay for everything!" They continue to apologize, even though you understood why they missed it. "It's alright, really-" "I wish I could have been here, damn it, I thought I was gonna be-" "Be quiet, you're fineee!"
-Apologizes for every little thing.
-You would have to explain to them that they're fine. multiple times.
-Here's something you had to figure out: Val's a paranoid, nervous, person. So them overthinking things and worrying is not uncommon for them.
-Plus they're a people pleaser..
-But once you do eventually get to have a hang out with them, you actually have really good time with them!
-Has a great since of humor!
-But is also very weak to jokes- (One's that they understand, at least.)
-You now have a lot of rocks/crystals and small vintage trinkets from them since that you're friends with them now. They enjoy seeing you so happy when you get small things like that.
-And YOU like seeing them get really excited when you give them little things they enjoy. Especially if they collect whatever you give them.
-Rants a LOT about things. Usually half way through whatever they're ranting about they'll stop so they don't bore you. even though you actually aren't bored at all, you like seeing them get so excited about things. since those REAL emotions, or any non-faked emotion at all, is almost rare coming from val.
-Also would teach you some German, ONLY if you wanted or asked.
-You would have to drag them to places sometimes if you wanted to to do something with them..
"There's gonna be to many people.. I don't wanna go.." "You promised me." "I-I know but-" "Come on Val, let's goooo!" "W-Wait-"
-Anti-Social. That's one way to explain them.
-At some point, you would ask about their mask, it's bound to come up one day anyway.
-Don't feel bad when you ask though, anyone would be intrigued when someone NEVER takes off a mask.
-They explain it very vaguely, something along the lines of 'it just makes me feel more comfortable.' Then it wasn't brought up again.
-That day you had planned to stay at their house and say for a while, play some games, watch a movie, ect ect.
-But while you were watching the movie you two had picked out together, you fell asleep on their shoulder.
-Once Val notices you fell asleep, which would be almost immediately once they noticed you stopped moving a lot, they try not to breath much or move.
-It's very sweet, they don't wanna wake you up.
-A while later they notice something...
-They liked being close to you.
⚠️IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THESE TOPICS, PLEASE DON’T READ THIS⚠️
((Artist/Writer here! I decided to write some angst with Rick and Val, and this is my first story I’m putting out on here so it’s probably not that good- but I thought about writing for a while so I hope you enjoy!))
((Also just a note: Val uses They/Them, but I will mostly be using their own name to refer to them, just in case anything gets confusing and you can send Val an ask about anything that happened in this story too))
“So, what does this thing do again?” Val asks, running their hand over the dome part of the helmet looking gadget Rick had been working on for about 3 months now. Their eyes follow the long, thick, cords connected to a chair that looked like it could electrocute someone with a gentle touch of their hand, other randomly colored cords seemingly melded to the metal chair, another helmet laying on the seat.
“Let me put this in a way y-you can understand,” Rick says, running his hand through his, disheveled, blue hair. “With this bad boy here I can, in a way, transfer myself into some-urrrp- someone else’s mind and kind of see what they see.” He explains, a smug look on his face.
“So.. Like a body switch?” Val asks, raising a eyebrow in confusion.
“No.. It’s like I can kind of l-look inside someone’s brain, I should be able to see their memories and other shit that their brain comes up with.” He shrugs, flopping down in his desk chair, snatching the silver flask off of his desk next to a bunch of loose wires. Val nods, understanding his invention a bit more, slowly sliding their hand off the helmet and turning over to face Rick “Speaking of,” Rick continues. “I was going t-to test it out.” He stands up out of his seat and takes a long sip from his flask. Val crosses their arms, gently tapping one of their arms with their pointer finger.
“Oh, really? I would like to see you test it with Morty-“
“I’m going to test it out with you, not Morty.” He says, cutting Val off. Val’s eyes widen, freezing up immediately after he says this. Rick screws the cap onto his flask, ignoring the shock on Val’s face.
Val’s mind started to race as Rick gently placed the helmet on their head. Val shifts, uncomfortable in the metal chair. “Stop moving so much, will ya’?…” Rick mumbled, now working on the wires and knobs on the sides of the chair.
“Well you put me in a metal chair, what do you expect? It’s uncomfortable..” Val says, letting out an exasperated sigh. Their leg continued to bounce, still nervous about essentially being the test subject for Rick’s new invention. Sure, Rick is the smartest man in the universe, but some of his inventions don’t always go as planned. Val has seen some of Rick’s inventions explode and catch fire right in front of them, so who knows if this one will even work.
“Alright, I think we are ready.” Rick says, making Val snap out of their thoughts and look over at him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, which he hadn’t. He was working on this new invention, which he was calling ‘The Memory Watcher,’ for months on end. He had stubble growing on his face, and his hair had been looking pretty rough. He looks over to Val and could tell they were worried, which he sighs at their worried look. “O-Oh come on, It’ll be fine. All I’m doing is gonna go into the depths of your mind, baby.”
“Yeah.. Right..” Val whispers. Rick pulls his desk chair next to Val, putting on the second helmet before sitting down.
“Alright, you have 5 seconds to pull out of this.” He says, pretending to sound annoyed. Rick knew that Val could get nervous about the stuff he does, so he tries to at least give them an opportunity to not do it. Val stays quiet, thinking about his offer. After a moment of silence Rick makes an executive decision to continue, he pulls a switch out of his pocket.
“Rick wait-” Val starts, before getting cut off by Rick.
“And awaaaayyyy we go!” He pulls the switch down, sending a bolt of electricity through both of them.
Then Rick and Val blackout.
“Ughhh…” Rick groans, his head throbbing. He slowly opens his eyes. Everything around him was different. Well. It was just a white void really. He sits up on his elbows, now he was able to see the hundreds, maybe, even thousands of doors scattered across the void. It takes him a moment to process it, but once he does, a wide smile spreads across his face. “Holy shiiiit! It fucking worked!” He springs up, the switch still in his hand. He gently clasps his hands together, looking around at all of the doors, even though there wasn’t really anything to look at since every single door was the same. “I-I gotta find some fucking memories to watch! They better be fucking interesting Val.” He looks around again, expecting to see Val somewhere, but it was only him. He sighs, shoving the switch into his pocket before walking around a little bit.
He walked around for about 10 minutes, opening random doors, which were just how you could get to any memory that Val had, and anything that Rick looked at didn’t catch his attention. Most of them he looked at were just them at home, or with something with Rick in it. He had probably skipped a majority of the doors he passed but he knew he wasn’t going to spend the entire time here opening every door he passes. As he walked farther, he noticed some of the doors seemed scratched, or broken. “What the hell?” He slowly comes to a stop, not being able to ignore that all the doors around him had large scratches on it, or there was something off about the door. He is eyes dart around for a moment, before he puts his focus on one door.
The paint on it was pealing and cracked, one of the hinges was completely smashed, and there was huge gashes all across it. He stands still for a moment, then walks over to it, placing his hand on the handle. He inspects the door for a moment longer before pulling on the handle, which it was way harder to open than it had been for any other door he had opened. He groans, using both of his hands and yanking the door open, making one of the hinges completely break off. He looks inside, seeing a long hospital hallway. He cocks a part of his brow and steps through the doorway. He looks around for a moment, seeing nurses, medical equipment, and some other people walking around. He decided to walk forward, inspecting the hall as he walks down it, then he comes to a stop at an open door on the left side of him.
“Why would someone leave their hospital room door open? Especially this late at night..” He pushes open the door a bit more, seeing about 3 doctors in the room, a child in the hospital bed with one of the doctors giving them oxygen, and then a way younger looking Val sitting right next to the child, holding their hand. A heart monitor beeped steadily, which Rick assumes to be the child’s heartbeat. He could tell it was Val from their distinct blonde hair, but he’d really be able to tell if it was them from their eyes, since they had heterochromia. He tensed his body up a bit before walking deeper into the room. Rick walks up next to the bed, the doctors ignoring him. He leans down a little bit, looking at the younger version of Val. Although it was weird seeing them without the mask on, since now all Rick can imagine them with a mask on. He pauses when he looks at their eyes. They had heterochromia. ‘Bingo.’ Rick thought. ‘There’s Val.’
“It’s gonna be okay, I’m here… Mom’s here..” The Val says, squeezing the child’s hand as they lean forward, their voice sounding strained and very shaky, but with the same, strong, German accent they had in the future.
“Mom?” Rick mumbled to himself. Val didn’t have children, they would have told him if they did. “What the hell..?” The doctors in the room paced around, seeming focused on something. He looks to the child in the hospital bed, and she had looked almost the same as Val. Same hair color, similar nose, other eyes were the same color as one of Val’s eyes. “Holy shit..
Val had a daughter..” Rick says, almost a bit too loud.
He steps back, now seeing how distraught the Val looked. Their cheeks were stained with tears, their eyes red with large bags underneath their eyes. Tears swelled in their eyes, their eyebrows furrowed a bit. He winces at how they looked, since they were pretty hard to look at. “Uh, Ms. Fehr, your gonna need to leave the room. And uh, you too Buddy.” One of the doctors says, glancing over to Rick. The Val completely ignored Rick and stared at the doctor for a moment before slowly getting up and walking towards the door slowly tears streaming down their face. The three doctors crowed around the bed, all their voices overlapping each other. Rick watched the doctors for a moment before turning to walk out behind Val. One of the doctors stops whatever he was doing and yells something into his radio.
beep… beep.. beep..
The child’s heartbeat started to slow down, making Rick and Val stop and look back at the doctors crowded around the hospital bed.
beep…
beep..
…
Then a flatline tone fills the room.
Val’s eyes widen.
“CLEO!” Val screams, making Rick jump back as they start to bolt back into the room until nurses run into the room and grab Val under their arms, trying to pull them out of the room. They struggle against the multiple nurses pulling them back, still screaming. As they are pulled out of the room, another nurse gestures for Rick to leave. He walks out of the room, a nurse closing the door behind him. He looks over to Val, who was trying to be calmed by a few nurses.
“No… YOU HA-hic-HAVE TO LET ME GO BACK IN T-THERE!” Val screams at one of the nurse, now sobbing.
“We can’t do that honey…” A nurse responds, rubbing their back as she sits them down in a chair. Val takes both of the palms of their hands and hits their forehead with them, trying to say something to the nurses, but it was all unintelligible from their sobs. Rick just stands in the hall quietly, watching Val scream and cry. He couldn’t really even do anything, since it was a memory after all.
A few minutes later the nurses around Val had left, and they were more calmed down, but they were still crying. Rick sighs. He slowly starts to walk up to Val.
“Hey, y-you okay?” Rick asks, sitting down in a chair next to Val. They look up at him. “Shit..” They looked completely screwed. Their hair was a mess, it looked like they hadn’t slept in days, and their face and eyes were redder than they ever had been.
“S-Sorry… I-I just..” Val starts, pulling their knees up to their chest.
“Don’t be sorry, you have n-nothing to be sorry about..” Rick says, patting their shoulder awkwardly. “Uhm.. You look.. a bit to young to be here by yourself.” “I’m 19..”
“WHAT?” Rick shouts. “19? WHO’S KID WAS THAT?” The kid, which Rick guessed to be Cleo, looked like they were at least 4-5 years old, and if it really was Val’s daughter that would have meant they were 14 when they had the baby. Plus, they were in their late thirties to early forties now..
Val stayed quiet for a moment, then spoke up. “Cleo?.. S-She’s my kid..”
Rick’s heart drops.
‘How the FUCK did Val have a kid?’ Rick thought, staring at them in shock.
“You.. How old was she?”
“5 years old.” “Then that means..” Rick does the math in his head, and his eyes widen. “Y-You had Cleo when you were 14?…”
…
“Yes.” Val answers quickly, sounding a bit ashamed. Rick had so many questions. “Why do you want t-to know..?” Val mumbles, hiding their face in their knees.
“Uh.. I-I just thought you would want someone to talk to.. You don’t look too good so..” Rick says, coming up with a half-assed explanation. Val sighs.
“W-Well thank y-you.. I.. You are not wrong. I do want someone to talk to..” Val admits, leaning their head up to look at Rick. He looks at them with a confused but sad expression.
“Who’s the.. Who’s the dad..?” He asks, crossing his arms.
Val freezes for a moment, then slowly says. “My father… He uh..”
Rick completely stops. The look of disgust and anger on his face made Val stop talking.
“are you saying your father… forced himself on you..?” He says, trying to ask it in a better way then just full on saying it. Val looks away. Then they burst in to tears, nodding.
Rick stands up, “excuse me..” He says, then walks down the hospital hall and turns a corner. He quickly pulls out the switch from his pocket and pushes it up without hesitation.
Both Val and Rick gasp as another electric shock is sent through them. Rick frantically looks around and sees he is back in the garage. Val groans, taking the helmet off of their head before slowly standing up, feeling really dizzy.
“Did it work? I blacked out..” Val laughs a bit, holding one of the arms of the chair they were sitting in for support. They slowly look over to Rick, and they immediately feel concerned. “Are you.. Crying?” Rick look over to Val, tears slowly falling down his cheeks. He stares at Val for a moment, then slide the helmet off and stand up from his chair, placing his hands of Val’s shoulders.
“Val..” Rick mumbles.
“Rick? What happ-“
Rick pulls them into a tight hug, not saying a single word. Val stops for a minute, very surprised, but then they slowly return the hug.
“Holy shit.. I thought I was going to die..” Rick says.
“Is that why you’re crying..?”
“Yep..”
“Huh.. A-Alright..” Val shrugs, patting his back a bit before pulling away from the hug. They glance out the garage door and see it’s pitch black outside. “Oh god.. It’s late, I’m gonna head home Rick..” They say, Stil, trying to steady themselves a bit.
“Alright, I-I’ll see you tomorrow..” Rick says, crossing his arms, now back to looking annoyed. “Alright, bye!” Val says, waving to him as they walk out of the garage.
As Rick watches them walk home, he can’t help but feel horrible for them. Bitting his lip, he wipes his eyes with his sleeves.
“Why didn’t Val ever tell me about this..?”