#because this bitch motherfucker keeps emailing the entire department of 30 people with shit i am handling

[guccigarantine]

going into an email induced violent rage

#im literally shouting at the top of my lungs #because this bitch motherfucker keeps emailing the entire department of 30 people with shit i am handling #you don’t need to CC the entire world it’s literally fine #leave me alone!!! #im working on it! #GAH #gonna start throwing things

[artificialqueens]

drawing new lines, chapter one (Branjie) - Holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr: plastiquetiaras) | (word count: 3756)

AN: Hello, new multichap! This one has been an extremely fun one to write so far, and I can’t wait to keep going. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Special thanks for Writ for being a wonderful beta, for listening to me throw ideas left write and centre and encouraging even the most headass of plots. Also shoutout to Barbie for coming up with Brooke’s career in this fic, aka wanting an architect Brooke. Title of the fic from Flying by Wrabel. Enjoy!

There’s no part of Vanessa’s day better than lunchtime.

The damn good lunch she’s packed if she’s meal prepped for the week. The myriad of cafeteria options if she hasn’t. The break from the politics and ridiculousness of working in the HR department. The top up of caffeine after her morning coffee begins to wear off.

But the best part of it all? Having forty five minutes to talk smack with Silky and A’keria, gossiping about their love lives and their coworkers and being noisy enough to annoy everyone else in the cafeteria.

Today, Vanessa’s the one partly responsible for inciting their shenanigans. She just can’t help it, not when Aquaria from marketing apparently has a new boyfriend and Vanessa knows for a fact that her new man ain’t gonna make her come as many times as Vanessa had when they were dating.

“I’m telling you, she ain’t never gonna have as good as when she had me.” Vanessa takes a sip of her coke as she watches Aquaria by the vending machine, arm in arm with her man.

“You don’t sound jealous at all, boo.” A’keria’s smile is all too knowing, and Vanessa has to stick her tongue out at her.

“I ain’t jealous.” She isn’t. “Aquaria was a total pillow princess in bed. You think I want that situation again? Nooo, thank you.”

Silky snickers. “We were almost convinced for a second there.”

“Please. I feel bad for her, if anything. She probably ain’t gonna get what she needs from him.” Vanessa tries to picture what the clean cut guy beside Aquaria does in bed. Somehow, with the side part and tucked in shirt and loafers, she finds that she can’t.

“And what is it that she needs? Your tongue? Your fingers?” A’keria wiggles her eyebrows. “Your strap?”

“Y’all hateful.” Vanessa scowls as Silky starts smacking the table from laughing so hard.

“All I’m saying is that Aquaria can do better. Though honestly, so can I. And she wasn’t even my last girlfriend. I can get me the ladies.” Vanessa scoffs as she says it. She totally can. She’s a ladykiller.

She is.

Ish.

“Is that so, Vanj? Tell us, who are the last few girls you got?” A’keria cocks her head, wiggles in her seat like she’s excited for Vanessa’s answer.

Hmph.

“Well. There was Aquaria, obviously. Who was all over me when we were dating. There was Kameron. Ariel. There was Scarlet for a short time, too.”

Silky wrinkles her nose. “Y’know, I always forget you dated Scarlet. That concept’s fucking weird.”

“It was fucking weird. That’s why we broke up so fast.” Vanessa shudders. “All I’m saying, though, is that I can get me a lady. I’m a catch, I really am. Hey, stop laughing!”

A’keria and Silky are too busy guffawing to hear her, and Vanessa can’t take this attack on her reputation, she really can’t. She’s got game, and she knows she can prove it.

“Fine. Name a lady. Any lady that works here, even if she straight. I bet I can get her to go out with me.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “It’s the Vanjie charm.”

“Ooh bitch, you’re asking for it. This gonna be good. We gotta think.” Silky drums her fingers on the table, leans back in her chair as A’keria takes a sip of her drink.

Vanessa takes a bite of her sandwich, tries not to be bothered as Silky and A’keria let out hmmms and I wonders. That is, until Silky slams her fist on the table.

“Brooke Lynn motherfucking Hytes.”

“What-”

“Not her-”

“I said what I said.” Silky gestures to Brooke, one of the firm’s top architecture project managers, currently waiting in line for her coffee across the cafeteria.

A specimen so fine that even Vanessa feels a tingle running down her spine. Or maybe that’s because she needs to pee.

Regardless.

“You land her? I’ll buy your lunch for a month.” Silky leans back in her seat, crosses her arms.

“Shit, really?” Vanessa raises an eyebrow at her. “An entire month?”

“You’re acting like you have a chance of success in the first place.” Silky looks a little too amused for Vanessa’s liking, and she feels herself bristle just a bit.

“I sure as hell do.” Sure, maybe Vanessa’s talking out of her ass, but she’s not gonna show it. Not to Silky and A’keria who are regarding her with smug smiles.

So what if Brooke, in her six inch stilettos and pencil skirt that hugs her ass perfectly, is sure as fuck out of Vanessa’s league? So what if Brooke’s known for turning down men and women alike that try to ask her out without so much as a second glance?

Brooke doesn’t wear a ring, which means that she’s fair game. And Vanessa’s going to make it happen.

“Just you wait. Imma make Miss Hytes fall head over heels for me, fuckers.”

Sure, the drama of Vanessa’s statement is slightly ruined by Silky letting out a snort, but the effect is strong enough.

Vanessa’s not going to have to meal prep for an entire month, if she can play her cards just right.

Brooke Lynn Hytes is a creature of habit.

Waking up, then going on a thirty minute run. Breakfast of kale and egg whites. Reaching work ten minutes early. Touching base with all the leads on her current project, making sure that it’s going smoothly. Getting the work done that she needs to before lunch rolls around, a lunch that she spends on her phone catching up with even more work emails. Working until precisely 4:30 pm, when she can roll out the door in time to make her spin class at 5:15 up in midtown.

There isn’t much that disrupts the routine if she has anything to say about it. That is, until she’s packing up at 4:32 and slipping her coat on and a woman knocks on her office door, entering before she can say anything.

“Hytes, right?” The woman flashes her a smile bright enough to knock out the power in the city, and Brooke’s attention is definitely captured away from her things on her desk.

The woman looks familiar. HR, maybe? Maybe the one who’d come around after John had said lewd things to Brooke’s secretary. Though Brooke’s not sure. “And you are…?”

“Oh! Right.” The woman pauses, sticking out a hand. “Vanessa.”

Brooke shakes the woman’s hand, noting that her grip is firm, something she always likes. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m here on…non work related business.”  Vanessa’s smile is sheepish, and Brooke pauses, waiting for her to continue, because she has no idea what the business could possibly be.

“So, here’s the thing. I have a bet to win that involves no meal prep for me for an entire month.” Vanessa drums her fingers on Brooke’s desk, almost nervously.  

Brooke raises an eyebrow. “What does that have to do with me?”

She’s never really interacted with Vanessa before, so she’s not sure how-

“The bet involves you, too.” Vanessa’s fidgety now, and it almost makes Brooke want to laugh, how nervous she is. “Two coworkers bet that I couldn’t get you to go out with me.”

Really?

Brooke snorts, because really, she should have expected it. “Did they, now?”

“Listen, I know it sounds wack-”

“No thanks.” Brooke goes back to packing up her things, tucking confidential files into the drawers of her desk, pulling her coat over her shoulders. “Don’t think I can help you out with that.”

Vanessa, for her part, remains unperturbed. “There’s perks. You can split the free food with me.”

Brooke snorts. “While that’s a very generous offer, I’m still going to have to say no.”

“Aw, why not?” Vanessa comes around the side of her desk, and Brooke gets a good look at her. She’s looking up at Brooke with a defiant expression in her eyes, one that doesn’t want to take no for an answer, and Brooke almost respects it.

But she also has a spin class to get to, which means that ‘almost’ isn’t really enough to make her want to be late.

“Okay, look.” Vanessa continues when Brooke doesn’t answer, instead focused on zipping up her coat. “This ain’t all just for my benefit. It could help you too.”

“Oh yeah? How so?” Brooke lets her keep talking for the sole fact that she wants to see where Vanessa’s reasoning will go. Vanessa’s incredibly entertaining, as much as Brooke doesn’t want to admit it.

“Ain’t there lots of people who try and snatch you up? You’re like The Bachelorette of this office building.”

Brooke has to hold back a laugh. “There are people that have tried to ask me out, yes. But I wouldn’t necessarily call myself that.”

“Chris Harrison must be lurking around here somewhere to host a season for you.” Vanessa’s grinning, and Brooke can’t help but notice how cute it is. “I’d wanna be on that season.”

“Would you now?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is, you got lotsa people bothering you, right? This way you can pretend to date me and just say you’re taken.” Vanessa’s looking at her like she’s just solved the world’s biggest math problem.

“I don’t know if that would necessarily work. We’d have to convince people that we were actually together, first of all.”

Vanessa waves a hand. “It ain’t gonna take Oscar-worthy acting to fool these buffoons. We could do it. Plus, ain’t you got people who bother you about finding someone? Friends and shit?”

Brooke thinks back to her last get together with Nina, when they’d gotten drinks and Nina kept waving her engagement ring around like it was a prized possession, like having a ring on her finger had magically solved all of her problems. Which it hadn’t, obviously, because despite the engagement ring Nina still has to deal with her car transmission needing repairs and her boyfriend (fiancé) coming home from work too late. So what’s the point, really?

Though it never stops Nina and Courtney and Steve from trying to set Brooke up with their friends (‘wanna go out with her, she kissed me in college which means she’s definitely still a lesbian, right?’), from them lamenting on and on that Brooke will eventually find the right person, she will, despite the fact that Brooke doesn’t really care.

Or want to find anyone, really.

Brooke’s got her job and her vibrator. The only two things she needs in life, really, for fulfillment.

But Vanessa’s still standing there in her too tall heels that don’t do much to increase her height, really, an expectant look on her face as she waits for Brooke’s answer, Brooke can tell that Vanessa’s already gotten her figured out.

“Maybe.”

“This can get them off your back. All we gotta do is show up at some social engagements and work events and shit and, bam. Fake couple. We both get a payout.” Vanessa grins, really grins, rubbing her hands together like a scheming cartoon villain, and Brooke can’t help how entertaining she finds her.

“You’re still offering half of your free lunches?” Brooke holds back a snort.

“We can cross that bridge when we get to it.” Vanessa waves a hand, before reaching across Brooke’s desk to grab the stack of post-it notes that sits next to her coffee mug.

Vanessa scrawls ten digits in messy handwriting, sliding them across the desk towards Brooke. “In the meantime? Think about it. Get back to me. You can be part of the greatest finesse ever pulled at this godforsaken office. All you gotta do is say yes.”

With that, Vanessa turns on her heel and leaves, but not before shooting a wink in Brooke’s direction. Brooke finds herself stuck in place for longer than she wants to admit, replaying the sway in Vanessa’s hips as she lets the door close behind her.

She snaps out of it when she looks down at the numbers scrawled on the post-it note, followed by a short, almost indecipherable message in messy handwriting.

U know how to reach me. Xoxoxo, V.  

The text comes through a couple of days later when Vanessa’s going over some policy that her supervisor wants to review again for the millionth time, and she nearly drops her phone in excitement when the unknown number pops up, because finally.

Fine. We can try to do this.

“Yesssss!” Vanessa can’t help the little fist pump that escapes her, because Brooke’s agreed and she gets free food but most importantly, the chance to rub it in the faces of Silky and A’keria.

Vanessa saves the number as quick as she can before replying.

VVM: knew u would see the light sooner or later.

BLH: awful presumptuous.

VVM: it’s just smart business!

BLH: how is any of this a business deal?

VVM: I dunno but I sure as hell am feeling as smug as the suits in our office building.

BLH: regardless, we gotta lay down some ground rules. For this to even work.

VVM: I’m snoozing already

VVM: let’s do this over lunch

BLH: are you food motivated for everything in your life?

VVM: maybe

VVM: Benny’s at 12:30?

BLH: unbelievable

BLH: see you then

Benny’s Sandwich Shop is a hole in the wall across the street from their office building that, in Vanessa’s eyes, has the best damn paninis in the city. She rubs her hands together in excitement before digging into her veggie grilled sandwich, wanting to make it last as long as possible.

Brooke’s sitting across the table, and looking at her with a slightly raised eyebrow. “That excited for your sandwich?”

Vanessa scoffs at the sad looking bowl in front of Brooke. “Better than coming to a sandwich shop and ordering a damn salad. What are you, a rabbit?”

“A rabbit who knows what she likes.” Brooke raises her fork towards Vanessa before taking a bite. “So. Rules.”

“Right, rules.” Vanessa rummages in her bag before pulling out a notebook and pen. She’s not going to be unprepared, not when she can get free lunch from A’keria out of it. “Number one, no dating anyone else while we faking it. Obviously.”

“You’re acting as if that’s a rule I would break.” Brooke has a smile playing on her lips and Vanessa scoffs.

“Just being thorough. I won’t either, so.”

“Or I’d be so heartbroken if you did.”

Vanessa sticks her tongue out at Brooke, who seems to be enjoying their situation way too much. “Not even an hour into fake dating and you already pulling on my pigtails.”

“Sorry.” Brooke winks and Vanessa’s breath absolutely does not hitch in her throat at the sight, no ma’am. “Rule two?”

“We gotta show up at some events together. To sell it and all that, otherwise A’keria ain’t gonna buy it.” Vanessa can already see A’keria’s piercing gaze, can already hear the soft mmmhm that she always lets out whenever she gets suspicious.

“Doable.” Brooke writes it down in the notebook. “Events like what?”

“Like some group dinners or evenings out, or holiday or New Years parties coming up, shit like that. To make it look like we cuffed for the season.” Vanessa pictures going to holiday parties with Brooke hanging off of her arm, maybe in a tight dress that hugs her-

She needs to focus.

“Okay. Rule three?” Brooke’s pen is poised to write and Vanessa kinda likes it, how in sync they are already.

Vanessa almost doesn’t want to bring up the next one, but since it’ll be a big component of faking a relationship, she grits her teeth and leans forward on the table to ask the question. “PDA. Thoughts?”

Brooke wrinkles her nose. “Not too big on overdoing it, but I can take some pecks here and there. Holding hands, being arm in arm.”

Vanessa nearly awws, because Brooke’s description is akin to the time in seventh grade when she’d ‘dated’ a boy in her class for three weeks before he broke up with her by the baseball diamond.

Not her finest moment, dating wise.

“I can do that.” The more she thinks about it, the more Vanessa is open to the idea. Participating in all of the innocent, early parts of a relationship, the ones viewed by everyone.

A small part of Vanessa wonders how Brooke’s hand will fit in hers, if it’ll be warm or cold. If she’ll fit against Brooke’s side like she belongs there. She’s excited to find out.

Brooke leans forward in her seat. “Not a rule but - how are we going to tell people we started seeing each other? What will the story be?”

Vanessa pauses and thinks, really thinks. She wants it to be elaborate but not so elaborate that it’s unbelievable, but just enough detail to convince others that their story is authentic.

“Easy. We ran into each other in the hall and you spilled coffee on my shirt and helped me clean it up in the bathroom, and the rest is history.” Vanessa’s proud of her imagination, really, until Brooke snorts.

“So we started dating because you took your shirt off?”

Vanessa huffs. “Got any better ideas?”

“Sticking with the coffee theme, here’s one. We started talking in the line for Starbucks and coincidentally ordered the same drink, then sat and talked about it, before talking about other things. Then you left your number on my cup before you left.” Brooke looks entirely too pleased with herself, the smile lighting her features as she takes a bite of her salad.

Vanessa’s not sold, though. “Why am I the one who writes the number?”

“Why, never had the balls to leave a lady your number before?”

“Hey.” Vanessa swats at Brooke’s arm, ignores the way she’s snickering. She knows that Brooke’s trying to bait her, she is, that somehow she’s already figured out the way that Vanessa ticks.

Doesn’t mean she’s going to try something different this time, though.

“Fine. I write the number. Let’s go with yours.” Vanessa lets out a huff before grabbing the pen from Brooke’s hand, writing their origin story on a corner of the page.

But they need to get back to the task at hand, something that Vanessa realizes when she puts the lid back on her pen. She uncaps it once more. “Rule number four. Social media. We gotta add each other on Instagram and post with each other here and there.”

“All I post on Instagram are my two cats.” Brooke’s smile is sheepish and Vanessa can’t help but let out a snort.

“Shit, you sure you ain’t a crazy cat lady?” Vanessa winks at her before reaching out, grabbing her hand, something that feels more right than it should. “We’ll sprinkle in some actual humans in between the cats.”

Brooke squeezes her hand back, something that doesn’t escape her notice. “Fine. Gimme your phone so I can add myself.”

Vanessa files a note to herself to stalk through Brooke’s instagram later after Brooke accepts her follow request, to look past the cats and for some more information about her, maybe about her past exes-

Nah. Just to be thorough, make sure she knows just enough.

Brooke holds up her own phone, the screen on a boomerang of Vanessa on holiday with Silky, facing away from the camera and pulling her bikini bottoms down for just a second. “Seems like your vacations are fun.”

“Bitch-hey. ” Vanessa tries to reach for Brooke’s phone but Brooke’s arms are longer, easily holding the phone out of Vanessa’s way.

“I feel like I’m going to have a great time scrolling through your instagram, I really do.” Brooke’s looking smug, too smug, and Vanessa huffs.

“Don’t think I won’t find your weird ass posts, too.”

Brooke’s eyes are sparkling. “I know you will. Though I’m not as defensive as you are.“

“Okay, last rule.” Vanessa shoves the notebook in between them, intent on distracting Brooke from her nightmare of an Instagram account. “Five seems like a good place to end. Any ideas?”

“I got one.” Brooke leans forward in her seat slightly. “Promise not to fall in love with me by the end of this.”

Vanessa lets out a laugh, an actual laugh, because Brooke is awful presumptuous. “I’m only in this for free food and bragging rights against A’keria. That won’t be a problem at all, don’t you worry your little blonde head.” She pauses, looking back over at Brooke, who still has a shit eating grin on her face. “And you can’t fall in love with me, either. I know I’m irresistible and all that, but-”

Brooke raises an eyebrow. “Please. I’m just doing this to get my friends off my back. You’ll be just fine.”

Vanessa wonders what it’ll be like meeting Brooke’s friends. What they’re like, what they’ll think of her. Not that it matters, really, since it’s all gonna be fake. But still.

“I think that about covers it all.” Vanessa looks at their list, pleased with how it’s all beginning to come together. “We’ll be able to fool these hoes, easy.”

“You think so?” Brooke trails her pen over the list, as if she’s trying to find something that they’ve missed.

“I know so. And hey, if we wanna add or take something out, we can always change it. This list open to edits.”

Brooke looks satisfied. “Good. And like any good paper contract, we have to sign on the dotted line.”

Her signature on the bottom of the page is fancy, all loops and flourishes and Vanessa can’t help but scoff. “What kinda extra-ass signature is that?”

“A nice one. Yours is boring.” Brooke points to Vanessa’s, smaller and definitely one with less loops and Vanessa crosses her arms.

“You’re boring.”

“Ooh, great comeback.” Brooke’s smiling, though, and it keeps Vanessa from wanting to reach over the table and shove her. “So, are we good to go?”

Vanessa sticks out a hand and Brooke shakes it with a firm grip. “That we are, blondie. Time to pull the greatest trick that our office ever did see.”

Rules:

No dating anyone else.

Show up at events together.

Light PDA only.

Interact on social media like a couple.

No falling in love.

Instagram story posted by @vanessavanjie. Location: @bennysdiner. Tagged: @bhytes. Description: A boomerang of Brooke Lynn Hytes sitting at a table, munching on what appears to be a salad. A gif of a rabbit eating a carrot is in the bottom left corner.

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #drawing new lines #holtzmanns