Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x M!Reader

Five

The wind brushed through your (H/C) hair. Shivering, you fastened your jacket properly, turned up your collar and took a deep breath of the fresh evening air.

Your eyes wandered to Kyle, who was walking slowly beside you, his hands shoved in his pockets. Just like him, you had grown, the boy you had once been no longer had much to do with the man Kyle had recognised.

You had grown taller as well, not quite as tall as him, but still enough for people to comment on the change since middle school. Your face no longer had the round cheeks and big eyes as before. You had grown up.

What happened to me, you had to snort. Some things haven't changed.

He smiled at you with his eyebrows drawn together.

"What are you talking about?", he gave you a shove on the shoulder. "You look completely different from when you were at school."

"Still, you recognised me."

A little flattered, he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I thought I had a vision or something, mate. But somehow... you're still like you were back then. Just... different.", he shrugged. "Dunno."

You hummed in agreement.

"I get it. You look different too. We've grown up. And yet you're still... Kyle.", shrugging your shoulders, you tried to put as much sense into your words as possible.

He grinned.

"They call me Gaz. My team mates, I mean."

"Hmm.", you nodded. "So is it true that the military is like sleepovers for blokes who all give each other nicknames and kiss the homies goodnight?"

Laughing out loud, he threw his head back.

"Yeah for sure.", he rubbed his nose to stifle the shaking that the laughter was causing in his shoulders. "They're a bunch of bloody idiots."

You smirked with amusement. Laughing, the two of you walked past under a trellis that stretched across the sky like a dome. The smell of blooming flowers filled the air, mingling with the iron of the rising rain.

"You're avoiding my question though.", Kyle said as you reached the end of the park.

Silently, you led him further along the street, past illuminated windows. Old houses from the Victorian era were lined up close together. Their antique archways and doors outlined the night.

Kyle let out a whistle.

"Pretty fancy neighbourhood.", he remarked, glancing around. "Must be expensive. Close to the centre, few tenements. Looks like a gated community of private homeowners."

"Way too expensive here.", you confirmed, lost in thought. "Some things just do change."

You pulled your mobile phone out of your pocket to check what time it was. Your little walk had already cost you ten minutes more than you had promised Lina.

So you were late again. With a sigh, you reminded yourself to give her some extra money on top of the overtime you had promised to pay her for.

"So?" he asked with raised eyebrows. "What kidney did you sell to live here?"

You smiled.

"Do you remember what I did after school?", you asked.

He thought about it for a moment.

"Didn't you always help your old neighbour in her bakery?"

You nodded, rubbing your tired eyes.

"I'm a baker. She left me the bakery after she passed."

His eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. Then he looked you up and down.

"For always being the biggest arse at school, you've really softened up.", he gave you a sarcastic smile.

You rolled your eyes with a grin.

"I'd rather you call me slur, Kyle.", you turned left at a crossroads into a small alley.

The houses weren't built so close together there. Small gardens carved plots of land away from each other and brought some greenery between the facades.

He looked around again as if he didn't belong in this place. You two had both grown up in middle-class London in the nineties. Back then, the housing situation hadn't been as bad as it was now, but you hadn't grown up in a neighbourhood like this.

You didn't go to private school either, just an all boys one. But both mums had been at home, the dads had had jobs and there had always been food on the table.

Neither he nor you had siblings, so there was somewhere to explain how the families survived on one salary back then.

But this neighbourhood was different. It was what you both called the neighbourhood of snobs back then, where German cars were parked, kids were dressed in all Italien and French clothes and most of the parents had jobs like doctors, lawyers or bank managers.

The moms had been so called trophy wives, insanely pretty, some even with royal titles and a taste for even more expensive stuff.

Even today, you were the odd one out. You just lived in this area but no one really tried to be your friend.

"Seriously, you were fighting with everyone. I remember when I had to patch you up like every fifteen minutes cause you beat up the pricks from physics class.", Kyle lifted his shoulders. "You even once punched Mister Davis."

"Got me expelled for two weeks.", you remember.

"Yeah and I had to cover up for you, made up stories what we did in school."

"We even walked to school and back like we always did. I even copied your tests to make em' look like I was there. God now that I think about it I really was a slick bastard as a seventeen year old..."

He huffed.

"Now you're baking biscuits, big man?"

With a shrug, you let out a sigh.

"Didn't really have a lot of options.", you said drily.

He smirked.

"Yeah your report card was bloody shit.", with a chuckle he wiped his face. "We made such an odd pair, mate."

"Mom almost tore me a second one too...", you shivered at the memory of your furious mother after she had gone through the last ever report card you had received in your life.

You had barely passed the A-levels with the lowest score of the entire grade. Kyle had been top of the class, had even graduated with honours.

"And now look at us.", you snickered. "A bloody solider and a biscuit boy."