Bacon, Brussels sprouts, and Bad Decisions
The conversation started because Xavier, for once, was the first one to look offended.
It had been a rare quiet evening in the executive lounge, the kind where nobody was actively threatening litigation, corporate sabotage, and/or each other. Y/N had made the mistake of lingering after dropping off reports, settling into one of the chairs with a drink and the vague hope that if she stayed very still, nobody would assign her a task. Sylus was stretched out on the sofa like he paid taxes in intimidation alone, Zayne was flipping through something on his tablet with that polished, detached calm of his, and Rafayel had somehow turned sitting in a chair into a performance art piece. Xavier, meanwhile, looked deeply annoyed in a way that made Y/N suspicious immediately.
Rafayel noticed first, of course. “What’s with that face?” he asked, leaning forward with wicked interest. “You look like someone confessed to a crime in your inbox.”
Xavier set his glass down with a quiet clink. “A woman at a fundraiser told me I had the sort of face she’d let ruin her credit score.”
There was a moment of silence as what Xavier had said before Y/N snorted into her drink.
Sylus dragged a hand over his mouth, pretending he wasn’t entertained. “That’s not even flirting anymore. That’s financial terrorism.”
“I disagree, it's rather efficient," Zayne didn’t even look up from his tablet. “Deeply concerning, but efficient.”
Rafayel lit up instantly. “Wait, no, this is fun. We’re doing this now. Worst flirting stories.” He pointed dramatically around the room. “Everybody contributes. I demand suffering.”
“You always do,” Zayne said mildly.
Rafayel ignored him. “I’ll start. A woman once told me she wanted to be reincarnated as one of my paintbrushes.”
Y/N choked on her drink. “No.”
“Yes,” Rafayel said, horrified and delighted all over again. “And then she winked. Winked, Y/N. Like that clarified anything instead of making it infinitely worse.”
Sylus’s mouth twitched. “That’s memorable.”
“I think that’s a crime scene, Sylus,” Y/N corrected.
Xavier leaned back, now looking much more pleased that the humiliation had spread. “Someone told me they wanted to climb me.”
Rafayel slapped a hand over his heart. “Like a tree?”
Sylus gave him a flat look. “No, genius. Like poor judgment.”
Zayne sighed softly, as if disappointed in all of humanity equally. “A woman once interrupted me in the middle of a conversation to ask if I came with the office.”
Y/N stared at him. “That one almost sounds normal compared to the others.”
Zayne finally looked up with a sigh. “She then asked if there was a waiting list.”
“Ah, right,” Y/N said, pointing to nothing as she shook her finger, “There it is.”
Rafayel turned toward Sylus with gleeful malice. “Your turn.”
Sylus didn’t even bother pretending reluctance. “A woman slipped her hotel keycard into my pocket and told me she’d always wanted to make a bad decision in a penthouse.”
Y/N blinked before nodding, “Okay, unfortunately, that one at least sounds smooth.”
Sylus angled his head toward her, amused. “Sweetheart, that’s because you’re ignoring the part where she said at eight in the morning.”
“That actually does make it worse,” she admitted with another short laugh.
“Perfect," Rafayel’s grin sharpened as he slowly turned toward Y/N. “Your turn.”
Y/N immediately shook her head. “Oh, no. No. I’m not interesting enough for that. Most people look at me and go, ‘there’s a woman who probably owns three cardigans and would like to be left alone.’”
Sylus looked at her over the rim of his glass with a slightly amused look. “That is not what people think when they look at you.”
She pointed at him. “You are aggressively biased, and I reject your testimony.”
Xavier folded his arms with a sigh, “You’re avoiding the question, Y/N.”
“I’m surviving it,” Y/N replied instantly.
Rafayel leaned across the arm of his chair like a dramatic sea creature scenting blood in the water. “Y/N.”
She squinted at him back. “You’re so annoying.”
“And yet,” he said, fluttering a hand, “you adore me. Now tell us.”
Y/N let out a long sigh and slumped a little deeper into the chair. “Fine. But only because mine isn’t flattering. It’s just... uncomfortable. Deeply, aggressively uncomfortable.”
That got all four of their attention at once.
“Years ago,” she began, “I worked retail at a home improvement store. Very glamorous. Very sexy. Lots of forklifts and despair. Anyway, I was in appliances, using a drill to put screws into one of the display dishwashers, minding my business, probably sweating, probably covered in dust, looking like someone’s exhausted apprentice at the world’s least magical workshop.”
Rafayel was already smiling. “Go on.”
“So this guy comes up and starts flirting with me out of nowhere,” Y/N said. “And not normal flirting either. Weird flirting. He tells me he finds big strong women working hard attractive.”
Sylus’s brows lifted slowly. “Big strong women?”
She pointed at him. “His words, not mine. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do, which, in hindsight, was my first mistake.”
“What was the second?” Xavier asked.
“Remaining in the area,” she said flatly. “Never remain in the area. Always scatter like a frightened raccoon.” Zayne’s mouth almost smiled at that metaphor.
Y/N continued, “So he walks off. I think it’s over. I think the threat has passed. False. Incorrect. A lie. He comes back a little later, and I swear he has a kid with him. I still don’t know if it was his kid or if he just found a poor random child for weird cute points.”
Rafayel made a strangled sound that might have been laughter.
“And then,” Y/N said, dragging a hand down her face, “this man looks me dead in the eye and goes, ‘Do you cook? I’ll marry you if you cook.’”
There was silence for exactly one second before Sylus laughed. It was not one of his polite chuckles or even the insufferable chuckles or an exhale that was covering a chuckle. An actual laugh. A low, rich, and openly delighted. The bastard.
Y/N pointed at him. “I suffered. You be respectful.”
“I’m trying,” Sylus said, still chuckling. “Continue. Please.”
“I panicked,” Y/N said. “Because back then, if somebody said something weird to me, I didn’t fight, I didn’t flee, I just mentally blue-screened. So instead of saying anything useful like ‘no’ or ‘please step into traffic,’ I went, ‘Um... yeah? I like to cook chicken.’”
Xavier lowered his head into one hand while Rafayel was vibrating, “Noooo.”
“Yesss,” Y/N said. “And then he says, ‘I don’t eat chicken. I only eat bacon.’”
Zayne slowly removed his glasses, which was never a good sign. “Only bacon.”
“Only bacon,” Y/N repeated. “As if he was a medieval wolf negotiating a treaty.”
This time even Zayne laughed, brief and helpless.
“So now I’m trapped,” Y/N went on. “Because again, my brain has already evacuated the building. I awkward-laugh and go, ‘Um, I don’t cook bacon very often. I cook with a lot of broccoli too.’”
Rafayel actually slid sideways in his chair, one hand over his face. “Y/N, no.”
“I know,” she said. “I know. But it gets worse. He looks at me and goes, ‘I don’t eat broccoli. What else?’”
Sylus leaned forward, elbows on his knees now, fully invested. “He was interviewing you for the position of wife based entirely on menu options.”
“Yes,” Y/N said. “Like a deeply unqualified hiring manager. So then I’m scrambling through my own brain’s pantry, and I say, ‘Um, I make Brussels sprouts with bacon usually?’”
Zayne put his glasses back on with the solemn air of a man reassembling himself after psychic damage.
Sylus just watched her with that infuriating, dark amusement in his eyes. “And let me guess. He had thoughts.”
“Oh, he had thoughts,” Y/N muttered. “This man says, with his whole chest, ‘I don’t know what Brussels sprouts are, but I’ll eat it.’”
Rafayel lost it first, laughing so hard he nearly folded in half while Xavier pressed his lips together like he was trying to maintain dignity and failing. Even Zayne’s shoulders were shaking now, and Sylus had dropped his head for a second, smiling into his hand like he couldn’t decide whether to be horrified or impressed.
“I hate all of you,” Y/N said, though she was laughing too now. “Do you understand how uncomfortable this was? I was standing there in my ugly orange merchandising work shirt being interrogated by a man whose diet consisted entirely of bacon and confidence.”
“That is the funniest sentence I’ve heard all week," Xavier said, grinning while Rafayel wiped under one eye dramatically. “No, no, I need more. What happened after that?”
Y/N groaned. “He got my number, because again... I used to freeze in weird situations instead of growing a spine and a taser. Then he kept showing up around the store for like a month. Just... appearing. Lurking. My coworker thought he might’ve been dealing drugs. To this day, I don’t know if that was true, and frankly I refuse to investigate.”
Zayne looked genuinely concerned now beneath the humor. “He kept returning?”
“Regularly,” Y/N said. “Not enough to launch a crime documentary, but enough to make me deeply suspicious of every man who approached me near a dishwasher display.”
Sylus’s expression shifted at that, the amusement dimming into something quieter and sharper. “And nobody stepped in?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “It was years ago. He eventually got bored and vanished. Haven’t seen him in forever. Thank God.”
The room settled for a moment after that, the laughter fading into something softer around the edges. Then Rafayel, because he was constitutionally incapable of leaving sincerity alone for too long, looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, but ‘I only eat bacon’ may be the least seductive thing any man has ever uttered.”
“It sounded like a threat,” Y/N said.
“It was a threat,” Xavier replied. “Nutritionally, emotionally, and conversationally.”
That earned another round of laughter.
Sylus, however, stayed quiet for a beat too long, his gaze fixed on Y/N with that unreadable intensity he got when something had slid under his skin. Then he said, calm as anything, “For the record, if I ever flirt with you by opening with my preferred breakfast meat, you have permission to kill me.”
Y/N looked at him. “Only if?”
The corner of his mouth curved. “Fair point. Expand the permissions as needed.”
Rafayel groaned dramatically. “See, this is why hers wins. It has everything. Power tools. Confusion. Improvised vegetables. A mystery child.”
“A mystery child,” Xavier echoed, shaking his head.
Y/N lifted her glass. “To the mystery child. Wherever he is.” They all lifted theirs, because apparently this was her life now.
Sylus looked straight at Y/N when he raised his glass, his voice lower than the others. “And to the fact that you survived retail without committing homicide. Still one of your more impressive achievements, sweetheart.”
Y/N snorted and clinked her glass lightly against his. “Don’t sound too proud of me. I was one bacon comment away from a felony.”
“Mm,” Sylus murmured. “And yet you showed restraint. Terrifying woman.”
That got her smiling again, small and helpless around the edges, while Rafayel loudly demanded that someone explain what Brussels sprouts actually were and Xavier refused on principle. The conversation slid into chaos after that, as it always did with them, but her awful retail story became the story for the rest of the night... retold badly, exaggerated shamelessly, and referenced every time anyone mentioned bacon.
And from that point on, every time Y/N passed Rafayel in the hall and he dramatically whispered, “I only eat bacon,” she seriously considered corporate violence.
Note: this is based in an AU where Sylus, Xavier, Rafayel and Zayne are all CEOs within a company called Stellar Apex Corp. (It's a front for Sylus since he's over Onychinus but a legitimate business.. in my head lol)
