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You and Lars have been together for about four months now. You had moved to the small town in Minnesota not long before, about five months ago. When you first met Lars he was with Bianca, something that seemed strange at first but the more you interacted with him at the place both of you work, the more he grew on you. You grew to understand him, you have things that help you too so Bianca wasn’t as strange to you as she was to many of the others in the community.
Lars doesn’t like to talk to others he doesn’t already know, that much was clear from the start, but you don’t like to talk to new people either so a lot of times you two would sit in silence in the break room. Some of your coworkers that you were close with had asked you at the time if it wasn’t awkward to just sit there without talking, but you found it very nice. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would try to force you to make small talk or to talk at all and that was what drew you to him at first. You had made some friends at the company who you liked, but a lot of times their constant need for attention was something that drained you, so the shift when you started being around Lars was immediate.
One day, you are sitting at the table next to the vending machine in the breakroom. You had wanted to buy some chips to enjoy at your desk to get you through the rather boring work you knew was in your future, but you had lost one of the coins you needed to buy said bag of chips somewhere under the table. Your friends had been sitting with you, but they had taken their break before you did so they had to get back to work, therefore you’re on your own and trying to look for your lost coin while clutching the remaining in your hand so as to not drop them too.
You can’t find the damn coin and it starts to annoy you, until Lars comes into the break room to take his break and to more than likely get a packet of chips for himself. You glance up as he walks through the door and he seems to notice your concentration on the floor. He silently picks up on the fact you had dropped your coin earlier and joins you in the search for the money. It doesn’t take him long to find it and before long he grabs it off the floor and hands it to you. “Oh, thank you. I couldn’t find it at all,” you thank him with a bashful look, a little embarrassed that he had to help you but you brush it off. “No problem,” he replies quietly. You always liked how quietly he speaks, a lot of the other coworkers were so loud, but he was much quieter which was much better for your ears.
You get up and the two of you walk the few steps over to the vending machine together. You let him go first and he quickly picks out his favorite chips. He grabs the bag from the machine and takes a step back so you can get your bag. You put in the money and the number before the bag of chips falls into the pickup box. You grab the bag and the two of you sit down beside each other at the table with your respective bag of chips. You glance at his bag and he glances at yours as if to memorize each other's favorite kind of chips. “My brother always liked that kind,” you tell him. It isn’t something he needs to know but you have a habit of simply spilling random details no one wants to know. He nods softly as if it’s the most important information in the world.
After a couple of weeks of being around one another he started talking to you more. He is still shy and rather introverted, but when he sees you he seems to relax a little and you feel the same way around him. Lars is a comforting presence, not just because he is like you but also because he is kind and gentle and would never yell at you, which in your mind makes him a nice person to talk to.
It wasn’t long after that point that Bianca died. You had been around Bianca a bunch of times as you had gone to Cindy’s party and had been around Lars enough to have been around her. The more you were around Bianca the more she, along with Lars, grew on you and you felt a weird sort of connection to her too. Your connection to her was not the same as his of course, but you liked her despite her being just a doll. When Bianca died, you were upset. You had never lost anyone you felt close to before and you are a little bashful to say that you cried a couple - a lot - of tears when you had to say goodbye to her.
You knew full well in the logical part of yourself that Bianca was just a doll, but not only was she more than that, you were also quite close with Lars and seeing him upset made you upset too. You knew that Bianca helped him out of his shell and him willingly being around you when you first joined the company was a prime example of this. You felt a large amount of respect and love for Bianca and so letting go of her felt weird for you.
The two of you stood together after the funeral and when the funeral ended you walked to the lake, then you walked around the lake before you hesitantly said goodbye to each other. The two of you had talked a lot, at first it was about Bianca and the grief you both felt after her loss but as you kept walking, your talk became more personal. Your talk turned into a talk about your lives, your childhoods, the future, your preferences and things like your favorite food, movie, animal. Most would call that a normal conversation but for someone like Lars who hates talking, it was a big thing.
This slowly morphed into sitting and talking during breaks, taking walks and talking during breaks and overall just being around each other much more. Your friends had asked you about it but you had brushed them off, simply taking their questions as teasing. To be fair at the start the questions had been made in attempts to try to tease you, but eventually they became real questions about the relationship between you and Lars. You didn’t know what to tell them at that point, you and Lars were close and you did like him, but you didn’t think you had a chance with him at all. It wasn't anything about insecurity or a lack of self-worth, it just didn’t register in your mind that he could like you.
Well that was until those four months ago when he invited you to his home in the garage and asked you out. He looked like he was on the verge of panicking but he tried to hide it when he asked you. Of course you said yes and while he was thrilled, he didn’t know how to express it at the time.
A few days later he came over to your desk at work and quietly asked you if you wanted to meet his brother and his sister in law. You had met both Gus and Karin before, but never officially so you agreed with only a tad hesitation. Only a little hesitation but a lot of nervousness. When Lars told Gus and Karin that he would like them to meet someone they had a second of fear that this would be another Bianca situation, but instead you walked in after Lars. Gus and Karin accepted you with open arms immediately and you were thrilled to bits. Gus and Karin had had their baby a month after Bianca’s funeral and both Karin and the little girl, Avery, were perfectly healthy.
Lars was very relieved when Karin turned out okay, her not being healthy was the worst outcome for him. He had paced around in his hallway by his phone's landline the whole day while Karin was in labour to hear from the nurses about how she was doing, praying that she would be okay.
Around lunch time you had visited Lars by request of Gus who knows Lars well enough to realize that he would be panicking. You had sat with him and you had briefly gone out for lunch after he had told the nurses you were going out and where to call if there were any updates. The lunch was nice, if a little tense as Lars kept glancing at the phone on the wall, but you tried to reassure him that all would be okay. He wasn’t particularly comforted by the words but the gesture was one he appreciated and you liked to think it was a bonding moment between the two of you.
Now the baby is a little over four months old and doing perfectly well. Lars tries to be a good uncle even if her crying becomes a little too much for him at times. He really likes her and she absolutely adores him right back, something no one in the little family doubted would be the case. You visit Lars at his house very often, always calling him beforehand and he does the same when he visits your home. A few times now when you have come over to visit Lars he asks you if you want to see the baby and every single time you agree. This normally ends in you and Lars babysitting Avery while Karin and Gus have some lunch or some general time alone without the baby present. You adore the baby and despite her attention mostly staying on Lars when he’s present, the baby seems to like you too.
It’s a windy Tuesday morning and you are sitting in your kitchen eating your breakfast when the phone starts ringing. You jump a little at the unexpected noise but you quickly get up to answer the phone. “Hello, who’s this?” you ask through the phone as you hold it to your ear and find that Lars is on the other end of the line. “It’s Lars, I was just wondering if you’d like to go to the lake later today,” he tells you and you smile softly at the thought. “I’d like that. What time are you thinking?” you ask him to make the hangout something he set on his own terms. “Maybe around 13 PM, if you’re not busy?” he suggests. You look over at your calendar hanging on the wall beside the phone and find that you have the whole day free. You turn back to the phone with a soft smile on your face. “I’m free all day,” you tell Lars. “Okay great, I’ll see you then. I love you” he tells you and you repeat the sentiment before you both hang up the phone.
You put on your necessarily big winter jacket and other such warming accessories before you make your way out of the door and toward the lake. You trek your way through the snow which is way too thick to walk through comfortably, but you are willing to make the sacrifice in order to see Lars. You look down at your watch and see that you have thirty minutes to get to the lake which is about ten minutes away, but you wanted to make sure that you had enough time now that the snow would no doubt slow you down. It’s a long journey through the snow but it only takes you fifteen minutes to get to the path by the lake where you and Lars usually meet up.
You are a little shocked when you walk up the path and find Lars already standing there. He lights up when he sees you and you make your way over to him with a smile. “Hi,” you greet Lars who smiles widely at you. “Hey,” he greets you back. “You’re here early,” you comment fondly and he nods his head in agreement. “I was excited to see you,” he replies as you two walk together toward the lake. He has the baby blanket his mother made him wrapped around his neck. When he notices that you are lacking a scarf he offers it to you. With a grateful look you wrap the grey blanket around your neck to substitute the scarf you had accidentally left at home.
You walk in comfortable silence which is occasionally broken up by soft conversation between the two of you. You ask about how Avery is doing and he tells you all about what she did yesterday. He asks you where you got your hat from and you explain that you made it yourself before you start to explain how you first got into knitting which he confesses to never having tried before. You offer to try and teach him how to knit sometime, something that he agrees to without much thought. As you speak he nods along, not keeping eye contact but you can clearly see from his face that he is listening and interested in what you are saying. When he speaks you give soft little hums of acknowledgement and interest that despite your own lack of eye contact shows your interest in what he is trying to tell you about.
After a long walk around the lake, that took so long because the snow made it hard to walk very quickly, you stop at a bench. You sit down next to each other and unlike normally, Lars takes his glove off and offers you his hand. He has told you about how touch hurts so you know it’s a big thing when you take off your own glove and hold his hand and he doesn’t immediately let go. You are only holding onto his hand, and very lightly at that, but you can tell that it still hurts. Despite the pain you can imagine him feeling, you can also tell that he still enjoys holding your hand.