soulmate timers au || jane & shang
00:31:26
The flatiron ran a smooth course over his new linen shirt, leaving the material unwrinkled. Shang lifted it and examined it critically, before lowering it and ironing the perfectly smooth cloth for a fifth time.
Nothing would go wrong today.
Last week, he’d spent a few hours at a department store — the longest time he’d ever spent shopping — browsing expensive outfits and polished shoes for this very day. The salesman had noticed the timer on Shang’s wrist and grinned wolfishly; it was common for men to shell out money for a new suit right before meeting the One. Who didn’t want to make a good first impression?
00:28:51
Shang, unsmiling, slipped the cotton Burberry shirt over his shoulders and buttoned it slowly. Naveen sat on his bed, a distraught spectator. As Shang’s roommate, he’d been dismayed to learn that Shang was not interested in hooking up with as many girls as possible before his timer went off. As far as Naveen knew, there had been only one girl in his roommate’s life, some small, tomboyish woman who was in the ROTC with Shang. She came around sometimes. He thought she smelled like a man.
Naveen begged him not to wear a suit, said, “My friend, do not wear a tie. The girly shoes, they are enough —”
"They’re called Oxfords and they’re Armani."
"They’re ridiculous.”
00:23:42
He swallowed. Glanced in the mirror. His appearance was presentable. He would take Naveen’s advice and ditch the tie, but he would strangle the man if he looked underdressed next to the One.
00:20:30
Say what you will about Naveen, thought Jane fondly--she who had perhaps the least to say about their resident royal, as unkind words went--he knows how to throw a party. In fact it was, perhaps, one of the things Naveen was best at. It was how they'd met, talked, flirted...and somehow completely sidestepped the bit where their relationship took a sudden turn downwards after they'd hooked up. They hadn't. Hooked up, that is. Instead they were, inexplicably, very good friends.
Not that the two facts were mutually exclusive (in general, Jane hoped, for Naveen's sake). It was difficult not to be attracted to the Maldonian prince, with his engaging conversation and charming smile and floppy curls...but maybe that was exactly why she hadn't done much about it in the end. There was something distinctly unflattering about knowing that he would have been just as charming towards any other girl who'd caught his eye that night. Not--Jane hastened to rationalize to herself--that she thought any less of the women she knew had slept with him...oh, but for Jane herself, it would have been so much more romantic to think that he'd made a special effort for her sake.
Romance, of course, was Jane's problem: romance, and the bit where she hadn't been born an American citizen, hadn't given one thought to a timer of her own until the move. That she was dating a guy who'd grown up in East Africa had begun, admittedly, as an act of defiance. In a country shaped by its reliance on the timers (Jane told herself, in the unctuous tones of a narrator on the nature channel), there were two sorts of men, at least that she'd encountered: those who had determined to make the most of the years before they'd found their soulmates...such as Naveen...and those who, fatalistically, rebuffed Jane's attempts to have a remotely NORMAL love life. Whereas Tarzan--
00:11:59
"Jaaaaaaaaaane," caroled Hazel, tripping precariously back towards her friend--and Jane wasn't sure whether she should feel guilty about it all or not. On the one hand, she'd been an awful friend--so lost in her own thoughts that she scarcely paid attention to the numbers on her wrist, let alone introducing Hazel around. On the other hand...Jane was not entirely certain that Hazel had had difficulty enjoying herself anyway. She had a red cup in one hand (clearly not her first) and her jacket in the other; belatedly playing hostess, Jane took it from her, winding her way through the packed townhouse until she found the coat closet.
"You're missing out," Hazel continued, in the same singsong voice, as if uninterrupted by the trivial matter of her jacket. "This is--'s fucking brilliant. You've gotta give my regards to the che..." she paused, clearly confused, but Jane had too much experience of Hazel's unique way with words to be worried, yet. "Not the chef. The..."
"Naveen," said Jane, equably.
"Yeah."
That one new song, thought Jane as it began in the other room, the one that's been a hit since last summer. It was greeted by cheers from the crowd; Hazel grinned and began to sway, mouthing along to the words.
Jane had never felt more miserable, but she forced an answering smile at the sight. "Right," she added bracingly, taking Hazel by the elbow. "Let's go and find Naveen."
If...whoever-it-is...doesn't find me first. She wasn't sure she wanted to know whether it would happen here or not--optimistically, Jane decided she was in the wrong sort of place. Good luck finding me, you wanker.
