A.N. So i have an obscene amount of au reign one-shots in my fanfiction folder, so I think i'm going to turn this into a sort of...one-shot collection (if that's agreeable to all you lovely people ;D) PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU LIKE IT IN A REIVEW! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, followed, anf favorited already! :D
This is a company au, in which King Henry and Queen Catherine are Mr. and Mrs Dauphin, heads of the French branch of Monarchial Industries, and Mary is the head of the Scottish company Stuart and Co.
Enjoy!
ii. Out of the doubt that fills my mind...
The first time she sees him, ever, he is bounding into the elevator, sloshing coffee dangerously near his wrinkled white shirt, and he taps his foot incessantly.
"What floor?" She asks him, trying not to let his unpressed shirt bother her.
"Ten," He says, and she notices that his eyes are almost unfairly blue.
"I'm going to ten as well," She tells him, and his resulting grin noticeably brightens the elevator. "I've got a meeting."
"I need to talk to my- Mr. Dauphin," He replies. "He's spent too much time without me, poor man."
"He must be lonely," She says as the elevator clicks past the third floor.
"He can't be that lonely, or he'd have already slept with one of the secretaries," He says cheerfully. "As far as I know, he's not that far gone yet."
Mary blushes red, thinks of her friend Kenna, who's already slept with Mr. Dauphin twice, and bites her lip.
"Oh. Shit," The stranger says. "I didn't mean- I didn't know- If sleeping with the boss is your thing, don't let me stop you. Do what you want with your body and all that."
"It's not. I mean, I'm not. I'm not even a secretary," She stammers out, and the elevator doors open.
"Good," He says as he walks out. "Because I was actually starting to kind of like you."
Mary stares after him, and when Francis comes up behind her to kiss her a minute later, she jumps.
The meeting is standard for the Dauphin family; Mr. Dauphin swears and drinks four glasses of brandy, Mrs. Dauphin looks disapprovingly at all of them and shakes her perfect blonde head, and Francis makes funny faces at Mary until she has to physically bite her lip to stop her laughter.
And then, fifteen minutes late, in waltzes the man from the elevator.
(His shirt, thankfully, is pressed now.)
"Good morning, all," He says cheerfully, bounding in and falling into the chair next to Francis's. "How are we doing?"
"You're late, Sebastian," Mr. Dauphin says fondly, and-
Are those laugh lines appearing around his eyes?
(Mary doesn't even know Sebastian, but damn, if he can do that to Mr. Dauphin, he's got her vote.
Ten freakin' times over.)
"Got held up earlier, and then the elevator-" He looks around and seemingly notices her for the first time. "Dude! I know you. I met you in the elevator! I-Am-Not-A-Secretary!"
"That's very true," She laughs, and extends her hand for a shake. "Mary Stuart. Head of Stuart and Co."
"Ms. Stuart, meet my son," Mr. Dauphin says, a hint of pride in his voice. "Sebastian. Sebastian, Ms. Stuart. Do you remember the merger we've been discussing?"
(Mary doesn't miss the furrow that appears in Catherine's brow.)
"Oh. Oh," Sebastian says, and he flashes her an absolutely shit-eating grin. "That Mary Stuart. Pleasure to have you on board."
"Pleasure is mine," She replies. "I'm sorry, I didn't know Mr. Dauphin had another son so close to Francis's age."
"That's because he's not my son," Mrs. Dauphin spits out, venom coloring her tone, and Mr. Dauphin shoots her a look that says very clearly, We're not talking about this right now.
"Anyway," Sebastian cuts in smoothly, "What's this I hear about interest on out-of state exports?"
After the meeting's over, Francis takes her to Sebastian's apartment, because apparently tonight is Video Game Night, and Sebastian is really done with it being ignored, and-
And she has never in her life seen a man's apartment that is this perfectly color-coordinated.
(Damn it all to hell, she thinks, he's totally gay.)
(And then she gets mad at herself, because not all gay people have to be perfectly color coordinated, of course, and not all straight men have to have terrible color coordination, and she's playing into the ignorance of society by thinking that, and really, she shouldn't even care, because if he's gay or straight, it doesn't change the fact that she's dating Francis.
But she still hopes he's not gay.)
Francis goes into the kitchen for beers and chips, and Mary watches Sebastian fiddle with the X-Box.
(He's got really long fingers, almost like a pianist's)
"Damn thing's terribly hard to work with," he says conversationally as he bangs the machine with his palm a couple of times. "But I'm way too sentimental to part with it."
"Sentimentality isn't a bad thing," Mary says diplomatically, twirling a piece of hair through her hands.
"Eh," Bash shrugs, smiling when the X-Box roars to life. "It's neutral, depends on how you take it. Most things are."
Francis comes back in when two beers and an "Oh, Mary, I didn't think you'd want one," and Mary suppresses her irritation by pondering over his half-brother's words.
Sebastian (she knows now that he likes to be called Bash) starts showing up for every Thursday meeting.
(Even if he's never on time to the meetings, she likes that he's there.
If only because he makes Mr. Dauphin seem more human, and it's fun to watch him piss Mrs. Dauphin off.)
It's funny, but Bash becomes the fastest friend she has ever had.
Mary isn't bad at making friends, not at all (she's actually good at it), but Bash has this way of penetrating every thing she does, saying what she's thinking before she does, and it takes too much energy to not like him.
He's so brave, and he's smart, but, she thinks as she watches him make paper airplanes with one of the secretary's son, he wouldn't make a good CEO.
For one thing, he's too honest. Bash says what he feels and does what he wants, and pays the consequences later; he's all recklessness, and he rarely thinks before he acts.
And for the second...
Francis has made it abundantly clear to her that he loves her, but if he has to choose, he's picking the company. And it's not a pleasant bit of knowledge, but it's something she understands.
(She thinks that at the end of the day, she'd probably do the same thing.)
But sometimes Bash's cousin and her daughter come to Video Game Night, and when Mary looks at him around them, she knows that he could never make that choice.
He could never pick something that wasn't them.
(She thinks that maybe she wants desperately for someone to always choose her.)
"Ah, Bash," Mr. Dauphin says dryly as Bash jogs into the meeting room. "You're late. How very in character."
"Gee, thanks, Dad," Bash deadpans back, sliding into his seat. "Love you, too."
Francis's features tighten, and Mary understands, because even though Henry Dauphin chastises Sebastian, he loves his bastard son in a way that he will never love his legitimate one, and it kills Francis and his mother.
"You interrupted our discussion on the employee pay raise," Mrs. Dauphin snaps at him.
"Aw," Bash pouts and swipes Mary's coffee from her hand with a glint in his eyes. "My sincerest apologies."
"Don't drink so sloppily," Mary tells him, taking her coffee back after he gulps half of it down. "You'll stain your shirt."
"Noted, Mommy Number Two," Bash grins his shit-eating grin at her and takes another sip of her coffee. "You put too much sugar in it."
"Don't steal it, then," Mary narrows her eyes at him. "Careful. I'll tell Isabelle you're being mean."
"She'll congratulate me." Bash replies, and raises her coffee cup to her in a mock toast.
"You're cheeky," She says with joking disapproval, and he smirks at her.
"If we could continue," Mr. Dauphin says pointedly, as Mrs. Dauphin's eyes flit back and forth between Mary and Bash.
Bash's eyes linger on her, and Mary sees laughter in them.
Surprisingly, they make her want to laugh, too.
(And the third reason Bash wouldn't make a good CEO: his every thought, feeling, and wish is on display in his crystal blue eyes.
It's not that he's no good at disguising himself; he's just never felt the need to.)
Francis's old secretary, Olivia D'Amencourt, comes back to the office, and the woman makes her feel slimy and gross, especially since she looks at Francis like she'd bang his brains out against the elevator door if he'd let her.
(Which he totally won't, because Francis is in love with Mary.
Right?)
And Mary isn't one of those girls that needs to call her boyfriend every other second like, "Hey, boyfriend, I hear that you've been breathing the same air as another female, and I'm here to tell you to handle that shit because that is not okay. Love ya!", but Olivia (Or 'Liv', as she prefers) wears pencil skirts that could conceivably pass for thongs and white shirts that are much too tight to count as work clothes, and she just makes Mary uncomfortable.
And then there's the whole reason she left the office to begin with.
Olivia D'Amencourt, top-of-class graduate from Yale, brimming with potential and possibilities, staggering with the weight of countless job offers.
Olivia D'Amencourt, the unfortunate secretary who gets caught banging her boss on the table, and not only runs from the company in shame, but can't find another job.
Anywhere.
Olivia D'Amencourt, who comes back with her tail between her legs and Francis wrapped around all of her perfectly manicured fingers and makes it quite obvious that she's planning a Frary homewreck of massive proportions.
(Yeah, Mary's just a little angry with Francis right now.)
Francis starts skipping Video Game Night, but by the time he starts bailing Mary and Bash are already friends, so she comes anyway and tries to beat Bash's high score.
(Which is quite possibly impossible, because when it comes to Link's sword in the Legend of Zelda, Bash is deadly.)
But then Francis's absence stretches out longer and longer, and he starts working later and later with Olivia, so Video Game Night turns into Movie Night, and Mary starts legitimately worrying about her boyfriend's fidelity.
Bash tells when they're watching Scary Movie IV that she's got no reason to be angry.
"I've got every reason," She replies, shifting the popcorn bowl closer to her and taking a massive swig from the beer in Bash's hand. "He was…canoodling. With his secretary."
Bash nods. "So it seems."
"Well, there's a better than naught chance that he's missed banging her while we were together, since I'm not a slut like she is."
Bash nods again. "Very logical assumption."
"And that means he's been thinking about cheating, and cheating is something I absolutely cannot stand, whatsoever-" She breaks off when she sees Bash's poor attempts at hiding his laughter.
"Why are you laughing?" She says crossly. "I'm ranting, over here."
"It's just," He speaks through chuckles. "You seriously think you've got something to worry about, don't you?"
"I do have something to worry about-"
"No, you don't," Bash laughs, and brushes a stray piece of hair out of her face. "Mary. Darling. Friend. Comrade. You gotta know, Francis is lucky as hell just to have you. No way is he ever going to wander, because there's nothing better than you out there. You're beautiful, and funny, and sweet, and kind, and Francis knows that any man is beyond lucky to have you."
Mary stares at him, and she sees in his eyes that he means everything he says.
(She sees something else, too, but she doesn't want to name it.)
And maybe it's because she's a little tipsy, but she can't fathom how she never saw him like this before, and the only acceptable action left is to kiss him and be done with it.
(It isn't just a kiss, though, because Bash is the best kind of addictive, and Mary has never been good at saying no.)
"That was really wrong," she says, breathless, when she pulls away.
"Quite," He replies, with his shit-eating grin, and proceeds to kiss her again.
She ignores him after that night, or at least she tries to.
(She hopes he understands why.)
But she can't forget him because-
Because she dearly loves Francis, but he is all rational thought and calculation, even when it comes to sex, and his father is diplomatic and calm, and his mother is bat-shit crazy, but strategically, and it seems that Bash is the only one in the whole damn family with that kind of passion, and Mary craves it. Longs for it.
(Maybe even dreams of it.)
"It's okay, you know," Bash tells her after a Thursday meeting. "You don't have to hide from me."
"I haven't been-" Mary begins protesting, but then breaks off, because dammit, he's right. "It's just hard."
"It doesn't have to be," Bash looks at her, and his eyes are guarded, and she wants to cry, because he has never been guarded with her before. Never.
(and it hurts that she's taken them this far, where he can't even look at her like he used to. Where he can't share every emotion he's feeling with her.
Where he doesn't trust her anymore.)
(He doesn't look at her anymore in the Thursday meetings, and he doesn't drink her coffee anymore, even though she eases up on the sugar.
She misses him.)
It's two in the morning, and it's not even Video Game Night, but she's banging on the door of Bash's apartment in her nightie like she doesn't even care.
"What the everlasting fu-" Bash begins swearing as he blearily opens the door. "Mary?"
"Yes," She says, and this seemed like a much better idea when she was angrily walking out of Francis's office after seeing him with Liv.
"What," He says, and she doesn't miss the gleam in his eyes, "Are you doing here?"
She stares at him, and then, (because she knows by now that he cares about her too much to move first) surges forward, crushing her lips to his.
She pulls away first, breathless, lips swollen, and the look on his face is absolutely priceless.
"Invite me in," She says, and he wordlessly opens his door wider.
The next morning she throws his shirt on, sits at his kitchen table while he makes her coffee.
"I caught Francis with Liv," She tells him.
"Dumb ass," he says, and slaps the coffee cup in front of her. "Idiot should know, there's no point in trading up when you've got the best model right in front of you."
She swats at him. "You're cheeky."
"You're beautiful," He shoots back with a smirk, and he smiles that shit-eating smile, and Mary thinks that she's not quite sure how it took her that long to realize how amazing he is.
(And then she takes a sip of her coffee and realizes he hasn't put any sugar in it, and as he literally convulses with laughter at the look on her face, she thinks she doesn't remember ever being like this with any other man.
It's a lovely feeling, and Mary decides right then that she's not letting go of it.)
...i somehow find you and i...
collide.