William Saliba x Fem!Reader
sy: instead of sleeping, you're trying to convince him to get a different haircut before the wedding.
a/n: i'm so annoyed rn... to the person who sent this request, i'm so sorry. i wanted to post your request along with the fic, but i accidentally lost it after moving it to my drafts. i really hope you like it and that it lives up to your expectations. i'm so, so sorry again 🫶
sorry if there are any writing or translation mistakes
You had just finished getting ready for bed and were now lying down, properly tucked in together. The bedroom had that specific quiet of late night. The bedside lamp at its lowest, the sound of the city arriving muffled through the closed window, both of you finally horizontal after a day that had lasted longer than it should have. William was lying on his side with his eyes already heavy, and you had settled in your usual way of curling into the space that was yours without asking permission, which was a gradual conquest of the last few years that he had never once complained about.
You lay looking at the ceiling for a moment because your mind hadn't quite switched off completely, thoughts making their last rounds before surrendering to sleep. Thoughts about work, about the weekend, about the wedding list that had been living in your head in permanent format since the date had become real.
The wedding a few months away. It still felt surreal in the good way, but filled your head more than anyone could imagine before actually being there. The thoughts appeared in quiet moments like this one and made you realise it was real, it was happening and that this man beside you was going to be your husband.
You turned toward him. He was almost asleep, his short hair slightly flattened from the pillow, that expression of someone two minutes from going under completely. You looked at him with the kind of attention people only have when they think the other person isn't watching — cataloguing the details, the line of his jaw, the way he breathed when he was relaxed.
And then the thought arrived. It had arrived before, actually, had passed through your mind a few times while you were scrolling through wedding photos on Pinterest at eleven at night with a cup of tea, the way people do when organising an important event and losing control of the internet rabbit hole they fall into. There was an aesthetic. There was a vision. And in the vision there was one specific detail you had been filing away for the right moment.
The right moment was now.
You moved closer, your shoulder against his, and let out a sigh that carried all the weight of someone arriving at a subject after a great deal of internal preparation.
"Babe," you said, with the voice of someone being very reasonable, "would you let your hair grow again for the wedding?"
As you said it, you ran your hand through his short hair with the lightness of someone assessing the situation, your fingers moving from the top to the nape of his neck with a calm that was simultaneously affectionate and strategic. Then you looked up at his face with that expression, the one you knew worked, not through manipulation but through the specific honesty of the "please" that was in it.
"Please," you added, just to be thorough.
William opened his eyes properly.
He looked at you for a second with the expression of someone who had been pulled from the edge of sleep into a conversation he hadn't expected to have at half past eleven at night. Then his gaze went to your hand in his hair, then back to your face, and you saw the exact moment he processed the request fully.
"Whyyyy," he said, with that specific drawn-out tone of someone simultaneously questioning and complaining. "You don't like me like this?"
"Babe," you said, with the patience of someone who had prepared the response, "I love you the way you are. I'll always love you the way you are." You sat up slightly, with the energy of someone arriving at the main argument. "But imagine... just imagine, the hair longer, it would match the aesthetic so much more. It makes sense."
"What aesthetic?" he said, and laughed as he said it, finding the whole situation funny, finding you funny, finding the word "aesthetic" being defended with that level of seriousness at half past eleven at night genuinely entertaining.
"The wedding aesthetic," you said, with the dignity of someone defending a completely valid argument. "There's visual coherence, there's a colour palette, there's..."
"A colour palette," he repeated, and the smile grew.
"Yes, a colour palette, William, that's a real thing that exists"
"You were on Pinterest again tonight."
You opened your mouth. Closed it. "That's not relevant to the discussion."
He laughed again and this time it came out as a small, genuine laugh, because he had noticed you were starting to actually get irritated, and there was in that something that disarmed you in a way you weren't going to admit while you were still trying to be taken seriously. You made the expression of someone deeply wronged and turned away with the gesture of someone ending the conversation on their own terms since clearly they weren't being listened to, rolling onto your side and moving toward the edge of the bed with a drama calibrated precisely to be noticed.
"Fine, I didn't even really want it," you said, with the voice of someone being very mature about this. "Keep the short hair. No problem. I'll just adjust the entire visual reference I've had in my head for months"
"it's nothing, it's just..."
"Hm?" he said again, closer, and you realised he had moved while you were in the middle of the argument.
His arm went to your waist with a quiet firmness that, pulling you back in with the ease of someone who had made that movement a thousand times and who knew exactly where you fit. You let it happen — with the symbolic resistance of one second, which was the minimum the situation called for — and ended up with your back against his chest and his chin near the top of your head.
"I'll think about the hair," he said, and there was in his tone something that was simultaneously a real concession and a gentle tease.
"You're just saying that."
"I'm thinking out loud." A deliberate pause. "Colour palette."
You felt him smile against your hair before leaving a kiss there — soft, slow enough to have intention, clearly there to get your attention, and it worked. Then his hand found your jaw with a lightness that turned you slightly toward him, and he kissed you properly — with that calm that was characteristically his, unhurried, as if there were nothing more important than being exactly here in this moment.
When he pulled back he stayed close, his eyes on yours, with that open expression that appeared when he wasn't managing anything and was simply present.
"I'll think about it," he repeated, lower this time, and there was in his tone something you recognised as real.
You sat with that for a second. "Okay," you said quietly, with a small smile of someone who got what they wanted without having to admit they got it.
