A/N: A series of fics inspired by prompts from alloftheprompts tumblr com/post/134349883493/25-days-christmas-romance-challenge though I probably won't be doing all of them this year because, well, I already missed my chance after I didn't finish this the first day. Oops. I'll probably finish the ones I didn't do next year though.
Here's a modern office/workplace AU. Don't ask me where they work though. I have no idea.
"Someone's still angry," a voice sang annoyingly. Petra normally wouldn't describe anything as annoying even in her head, but her patience had run out and she found that everything was getting on her nerves as of late. Her coworker Hanji Zoe perched gleefully on the arm of Petra's chair, something that their coworker Moblit, who worked a couple of cubicles over, had repeatedly told Hanji not to do because she had fallen off way too many times.
Petra huffed and tucked a lock of ginger hair behind her ear. "I'm not mad," she insisted, trying and failing to reply in a calm manner. "It's just that I don't understand why I couldn't be paired up with someone so grumpy to plan for a cheery holiday party. Do you think he even knows how to smile?" It really was just her luck to be stuck with the grumpiest guy in the office to plan out the annual surprise Christmas party for their boss Erwin Smith (who probably caught on by now so it was more of just an ordinary holiday party than a surprise party).
Hanji let out a snicker – more of a cackle really, all of her laughs seemed to echo throughout the office – and put her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Levi's face is just like that, I swear. I bet he came out of his mom's womb with that face."
Petra tried to imagine a baby Levi, smiling and happy as all babies were supposed to be, but all she could see was the short, raven-haired man with stormy gray eyes and a perpetual frown plastered on his face. "Can't you just switch with me?" Petra pleaded. "I'm sure no one really cares whether or not I work on the decorations committee or the alcoholic bar."
"Nope!" Hanji said cheerfully, slapping Petra on the back a little too hard. "Sorry, but Moblit's working with me on the bar and that man knows his drinks. Makes my job easy!"
Petra groaned, slumping over her desk. "But you're the only one in this office that actually likes him!"
The spectacled woman blinked at her companion. "Why don't you like him, Petra?" she asked. "You like everyone!"
She rolled her eyes. "Maybe if he were less of a pompous ass I'd like him better," Petra said, shrugging.
Hanji raised her eyebrows. "Where did you get that idea?"
"Remember that one time when Auruo was giving a presentation on another marketing strategy for the next product we were going to put up last September?" Petra said, sitting up a bit and tapping her fingers on her desk. "And Levi interrupted him right in the middle of what he was saying and told him that his idea was 'absolute shit'?" She made little air quotes around the last few words and scowled.
Hanji smiled and waved her hand as if dismissing this very important character-defining event. "Levi just hates social media in general. He's an old man that way. But didn't you even think that the twitter hashtag was a little ridiculous?" Hanji smirked.
Petra huffed. "So Auruo isn't the best with making up snazzy hashtags, so what? That didn't give Mr. Frowns-a-Lot a right to humiliate him in front of everyone! Auruo looks up to him a lot too. He won't even walk past Levi's office without me if he has to."
Hanji scratched the back of her head and laughed. "Yeah, he was a little harsh, wasn't he?"
"A little? He crushed poor Auruo's soul!" Petra exclaimed. She sat back in her seat, folding her arms against her chest. "Does he think that just because he's Erwin's right-hand man he gets to treat everyone else like trash? He always acts likes he's better than everyone. He has that weird habit of just referring to people by their last name. And why is he always frowning? He always looks like he'd rather be somewhere else." Petra scrunched up her nose in distaste. God, she hated this guy.
"I'm serious! It's just his face!" Hanji insisted, bursting into laughter once more. A few heads turned in their direction but, seeing that it was Hanji, returned back to work immediately.
Petra's phone rang, a loud, ominous tone, and Petra frowned, looking at her phone as if she wished it would explode. "Ugh, it's him." She picked up her phone gingerly, grimacing at the name across the screen: Devil's spawn.
Hanji raised an eyebrow. "Already? We only got assigned to our tasks yesterday."
Petra stood up, tossing her things carelessly in her bag. "He wants to get this done as fast as possible," she explained, rolling her eyes to let her friend know that she thought he was being ridiculous. "He probably wants to get this out of the way so he never has to speak to me again."
"Have fun!" Hanji crowed, widely waving and grinning mischievously as Petra walked away.
…
They sat there awkwardly in his office for a long while after Petra had arrived. She noticed how spotless it was. All of the papers on his desk were neatly stacked together in organized piles and his pens and highlighters were placed neatly in his sectioned penholder – organized by color, of course. She was kind of afraid of touching anything. Petra perched nervously at the edge of the seat.
"So," Levi spoke slowly, "do you have any ideas, Ral?"
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. Calling people by their last names probably allowed him to distance himself from all of the workers who weren't the star employee. "Well, it's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed. We could fill vases with M&Ms and put cakepops inside for centerpieces instead of the classic flowers, right?" She glanced at him to observe his reaction.
He shrugged and fiddled around with a pen, clicking it idly. "I guess."
Petra pursed her lips. She probably shouldn't have expected a helpful response from the world's biggest jerk. She leaned forward slightly, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. "Maybe we should decorate the trees with chocolates. I saw some shaped like reindeer the other day when I was going shopping. Those could be cute and people can eat them at the party if they want."
Levi snorted. "Sounds like you're just trying to give everyone at the party a heart attack." Nevertheless, he wrote it down on the notepad he had in front of him. His printing was as neat and tidy as the rest of his office, Petra observed. They might as well just make his handwriting a font.
She huffed. "Okay, what are your ideas then, Levi?" Sure, saying his last name probably would have been more menacing but she didn't want to be anything like him so she stuck to calling him by his first name and putting as much malice as she could into it.
He blinked, somewhat surprised at her angry tone, but he didn't say anything about her uncharacteristic scowling. Instead he looked out of his window, still clicking his pen. "I'm not much of a holiday person," he muttered.
She fought the urge to say, Gee, really? I never would have guessed. "Maybe I should just plan it out myself. Then we can get this out of our hair as soon as possible," she said, already packing up her things. It's not like Levi would object to her suggestion. Really, it was the best option for both of them. She wouldn't have to work with a huge snob and he wouldn't have to interact with a living, breathing person. They would both get what they wanted.
As Petra began to open the door, not even bothering to say goodbye to Levi, she heard him speak. "Is it because you think I'm a pompous ass?"
She stood there, foot halfway through the door and her jaw agape, and froze in place. She must have imagined him saying that. There was no way he knew that she had said that about him. Unless…
The door banged shut. She stomped up to his desk, horrified at the amused smirk on his face, and slammed her hands on his desk. "Did Hanji tell you I said that?" she hissed.
He leaned back in his chair. His expression had reverted back to its normal indifferent state, yet Petra could see a small upward twitch at the right corner of his mouth. "You shouldn't really tell that Four-eyes anything if you can help it. She has a tendency to talk a lot." Levi pulled his phone, flipping through it quickly. "She also texted me last week to say that you were complaining about me being a 'self righteous bastard.'" He looked at her, eyebrows raised. He didn't look the least bit angry, just slightly entertained. Petra thought she would rather he be angry. At least he wouldn't have that stupid smug look on his face.
She felt her cheeks flush red in embarrassment. "So she's been giving you updates on how much I absolutely hate you," Petra said slowly, "and you haven't spoken to Erwin about it at all? Didn't you want me fired after you heard me say those awful things to you?"
He shrugged again, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
"What's wrong with you?" she spluttered. Petra realized that raising her voice to a superior would most likely get her fired (and she was pretty lucky that Levi hadn't fired her before because of her previous comments) but she couldn't help it. He was infuriating and it was making it hard for her to think clearly. She leaned in closer, narrowing her amber eyes at him. "Name one reason you wouldn't want me fired." She was sure of that. Levi had little to no knowledge of her. She had only had contact with him during meetings and he was usually sitting at one end of he table looking bored. There wasn't any reason for him to feel like she was an essential member of the company.
He rested his elbows on his desk, leaning forward with his fingers steepled in front of his face. "I wouldn't say that. You're the only one in the office who doesn't make shitty coffee."
If Petra was asked to make a list of unbelievable people right then and there, Levi would definitely take the number one spot. "Out of everything I have to offer," she said through gritted teeth, "the only one of them that prevented me from getting fired was my ability to make you a caffeinated beverage every morning?"
"You said one reason," he replied, getting up from his chair and slipping on his blazer. He glanced at Petra, who was still staring at him with her mouth agape. "I have a meeting with Erwin, Ral, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We should probably regroup for this stupid decoration committee thing."
"You actually want to discuss this with me?" She had no idea Levi Ackerman was this full of surprises.
He sighed. "I don't want to do this." He gestured around the room with his hand. Petra wondered if "this" meant planning the holiday party or just work in general. "But I'd rather you not do everything by yourself. I'm an asshole, but I'm not that big of an asshole." He smirked.
She felt cheeks flush and she tugged at a lock of her hair at the side of her face. "Oh," she squeaked.
Levi walked over to the door, holding it open and looking at her expectantly. "Meet me tomorrow in my office during our lunch break and we'll talk about that candy idea or something. I swear Hanji just proposed that chocolate factory theme so she could take home as much sugar as possible," he said, wrinkling his nose.
"Ah, okay," she said. Another thing she hadn't expected: Levi casually making jokes with her. She didn't even know he was capable of having a sense of humor that didn't involve murder or something equally dark and scary. "Tomorrow during lunch break?"
"Unless you'd rather not," he replied. She had to quicken her pace. For a short man he had a rather quick gait. He fidgeted with his tie and looked at her through the corner of his eye. "I know I'm an asshole."
"Not that big of an asshole," she said quickly. "I mean, you didn't get me fired and you're not shoving all of the party planning on me so you can't be that bad."
"Still an asshole but not that big of an asshole. I guess that's kind of reassuring. I'll see you tomorrow then." They approached the door of the conference room and Levi rested his hand on the knob. He turned to look at Petra. "And, Ral, you're do pretty decent work."
Before she could ask him to elaborate he had disappeared into the meeting. As she walked back to her cubicle she rethought her opinion of Levi Ackerman. So he was blunt and had a horrific scowling face that served as his default expression, but he was also nice enough not to rat out her less than stellar behavior to Erwin Smith. And, from what she could tell about his pitiful attempts at complimenting her for making coffee that wasn't shitty and doing "pretty decent work," he wasn't a dick. He just sucked at talking in general. Maybe she should give him a second chance. After all, he didn't look half bad, she thought as she bit her lip.
When Hanji texted her later that day asking how the planning went, Petra texted her back with a message saying, "Not bad." She rolled her eyes at the winking emoji her friend sent her in reply not half a minute later.
…
Moblit observed the two people walking to the elevator. They were chatting about something, the ginger woman gesturing with her hands while the man with the dark hair cut in an undercut nodded every once in a while to indicate that he was listening.
"They're so cute," a voice breathed next to his ear.
He turned his head quickly to find Hanji next to him, looking in the direction of their coworkers. "Hanji, what the fuck?" he spluttered. "I told you to quit doing that! You scared the crap out of me."
She patted him on the shoulder. "Moblit, what do you think of Ral and Ackerman?" she asked, ignoring his scolding as she always did.
He scratched the back of his head. "Uh, they're working on décor for the Christmas party, right?" he asked. "Although, they've been working on it quite a while. They've been eating lunch together every day for the past week. Does it really take that long to decide what to buy for the party?"
Hanji's grin grew even wider. "I highly doubt they're discussing décor." She wrapped her arm around Moblit's shoulders. "Nope. My dear friend, what you have witnessed is the budding relationship between two of the most adorable people on the planet." She gazed up at the ceiling lights, waving her other hand in the air as if the accentuate the importance of this event.
"Wait, are they dating?" Moblit asked in a hushed whisper.
"All in due time, Moblit!" Hanji chirped happily. "And it's all thanks to me rigging that random partner drawing for the Christmas party!"
Moblit nodded then looked at Hanji. "Wait, you rigged it?" he said, eyebrows raised. He didn't know why he was so surprised. It was the sort of devious act that was so characteristic of his crazed coworker.
"Yup!" she said proudly, hands on hips and chest puffed out.
"Wait, so…" Moblit put two and two together in his head. He narrowed his eyes at the happy brunette perched on the edge of his desk. "Did you also rig it so that I'd end up as your partner?"
Hanji smiled sheepishly. "I'll buy you a bottle of your favorite vodka if you don't tell anyone about it," she offered.
Moblit sighed. Then again, he did like his alcohol. "Fine, fine," he sighed. Anyway, he couldn't really blame Hanji for rigging it. Petra and Levi did look like they'd make a cute couple.
A/N: Mischievous Hanji is my favorite. Poor Moblit though.
