pairing: jschlatt x reader
summary: your ex boyfriend is there at the party you're at. luckily for you, his frat brother schlatt has a proposal in mind to get back at him.
genre: fluff (fratboy / fake dating)
The music is loud enough to feel the heavy bass echo loudly in your chest. The air is thick with bodies, sweat and alcohol. You should be used to this, really. The frat scene is something you’re very familiar with, but now, you feel like you’re an observer peeking in.
Across the room, your ex laughs like nothing ever happened. He’s standing very close to a girl you’ve never seen, a girl who looks completely different from you. The sight pulls at your heart strings.
“You’re staring,” a voice cuts in between your somber thoughts, low and unimpressed, pulling you out of the spiral before you can sink any deeper into it.
You look to your left and see Schlatt leaning against the doorway, sleeves pushed up and red solo cup in hand. You’re only familiar with him as both your ex and him live together in the frat house. You’ve seen him in passing, giving a bright smile and getting a silent nod back in response. You don’t think you’ve spoken to him for more than four sentences.
“I’m not staring,” you reply, even though you know you’re not convincing him or yourself.
He raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been looking at George for the past five minutes.” he scoffs, pushing himself off the wall and making his way closer to you.
“I just zone out sometimes,” you shrug as your fingers tighten around your own red cup. The couple making out on the couch get up to move somewhere else doing god knows what, and you sit to replace them.
“Yeah,” he mutters, dropping onto the couch beside you, close enough that your shoulder brushes his. “I’m sure that’s it.”
You exhale, a mix of a sad self-loathing laugh and sigh, because there’s no point in pretending with him.
“It’s nothing,” you mutter. You try to give a small smile, unconvincing once more.
Schlatt follows your line of sight until it lands on your ex. “He screw you over?” he asks.
Luckily, there’s no judgment in his tone, just blunt curiosity, and that makes it easier to answer. “Yeah,” you admit. “He did.”
Schlatt nods once. “Cool,” he says flatly. “I hate him.”
You let out a real laugh, the sound surprising you more than him. “Isn’t he your brother? Frat solidarity and all that?”
“There’s a million frat brothers, can’t love em all.” he replies easily.
You giggle some more. “Fair enough.”
“Kiss another girl. I don’t know if it’s that girl,” you point to the girl he’s talking to, “or a whole other one.”
You don’t know what to say after that. There’s silence between you two that’s comfortable despite being practically strangers, the intense noise of the party filling it between you, and then he leans slightly closer.
“You wanna make him jealous?” he asks right next to your ear.
You blink, caught off guard by how close he is to you. “What?” You laugh nervously, pulling away.
“I’m serious,” he continues, nodding toward your ex. “Guy looks way too comfortable for someone who fucked you over.”
“That’s not your problem,” you point out, even though your gaze flicks back across the room.
“No, it’s not.” he agrees. “But it could be my entertainment.”
You shake your head, a small smile pulling at your lips. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And you’re considering it,” he smirks, like he already knows what you’ll say.
You hesitate, because he’s right, and you hate that he’s right, because part of you wants your ex to look over and feel the way you feel right now, instead of acting like you never mattered.
“How would that even work?” you look back at him.
Schlatt’s mouth tilts into a grin that is far too confident. “We fake date.”
You stare at him, waiting for him to take it back.
“That’s your plan?” you ask. “What is this, To All the Boys I've Loved Before?”
He rolls his eyes, “It’s a good plan.”
“It’s a terrible plan,” you counter.
“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “But it’ll work.”
You look back at your ex again, at the way he still hasn’t even glanced in your direction, and that fuels you with just enough anger to make your decision.
Schlatt’s grin appears immediately. You hate that he knew you would say yes all along.
“Yeah,” you repeat, exhaling slowly. “But if this turns into a disaster, I’m blaming you for all of it.”
“Deal,” he says without hesitation.
Before you can second guess yourself, his hand finds yours, fingers warm as they lace together.
And after that first move, it’s easy. It feels almost natural.
Schlatt keeps you close without asking, his hand settles heavy at your waist, and he talks to you like you’ve known each other for years, leaning in just enough to make everything more, well, romantic.
You match his actions and energy, laughing at his comments, nudging his shoulder, letting your fingers graze against his arm just long enough to sell it.
It works faster than you expect. Your ex notices.
You see it in the way his expression shifts when he finally looks over. Your eyes catch one another and you find a sick joy in seeing the confusion flickering across his face. For the first time all night, he’s paying attention.
Schlatt notices too, of course he does, and his thumb presses lightly against your side, turning your attention back to him.
“See that?” he murmurs under his breath. “That’s what we’re going for.”
You nod, your heart beating faster than it should. You blame it on the fact that your ex has his eyes on you, not the fact that Schlatt’s been glued to you all night. That you can feel his strong, firm arms around you. That you realize how funny and smart he really is.
It’s your ex not him, you remind yourself. Right?
And the act doesn’t end when the party does.
The next morning, you wake up to a text from him that makes you smile before you can stop yourself.
Schlatt: did we break up overnight or are we still doing this
You stare at your phone for a second, then type back.
You: depends. you still annoying?
You laugh out loud, the sound echoing in your room.
Schlatt starts showing up outside your classes, leaning against the wall, and you fall into step beside him. He slows his pace to match yours, walking you across campus.
You sit together for lunch, joking around and talking about anything and everything, and he shows up to your tutoring sessions with an expression that shows he would rather be anywhere else, even though he never leaves early.
The tutoring part was your suggestion. After his eagerness to help you out with your ex, you offered to help him out in another way. Through teaching him the ups and downs of English Literature.
“You’re late,” you scold him one afternoon, but your bright smile gives you away as you look up from your notes.
“Yeah, I know,” he puts his hands up in surrender.
“Do you want to pass this class or not?” you squint, tilting your head slightly.
“Not really,” he exhales, dragging a hand through his hair.
You grin. “Too bad. You’re stuck with me.”
He looks at you for a second too long. “Unlucky,” he finally mutters.
You feel when something’s different. You can’t put your exact finger on it, but something between you two changes.
You start texting about deeper things, more personal things. You learn about his secret hobby of filmmaking and gaming, how he wishes to pursue it as a real job. You tell him your secrets, how you felt inferior during your relationship with George, how you wish to move all the way across the country and live a new life.
Schlatt promises to take you to the East Coast himself. You take it as a joke.
He lets you in on small parts of his day. Texting a photo of a bunny on campus, sharing a new movie he watched that he thinks you’ll enjoy. You respond eagerly without questioning it, without stopping to ask yourself when the act started to fade and everything started to feel real.
What drives you even more crazy is how he acts around you in real life.
Your tutoring sessions end, your books are packed away, and the conversation that could end as you both leave stretches just a little longer each time, until you realize he’s not in any rush to leave, that he stays seated across from you when there is no reason to, watching you as you talk about something unrelated. Slowly, he starts to let you ramble freely, not responding in sarcasm but genuine interest.
You tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything. You tell yourself this is still part of what you agreed to, even when there is no one around to see it.
But then, there are the small moments that just feel special.
The way his hand finds yours without hesitation, not in crowded rooms where eyes might be on you, but in empty hallways and late walks back to your dorm, where there’s nothing to prove and no one to convince. The way his fingers lace with yours like it’s his instinct, and when you glance at him, expecting a joke or a comment to follow, there’s nothing from him, just the same unreadable expression he always has. The way he spends all night at your dorm, studying and fooling around before leaving.
You don’t bring it up. You let it happen, because part of you doesn’t want to risk breaking whatever this is by trying to define it.
Schlatt notices too. He’s always paid attention to the little things. The way you share intimate thoughts with him, the way you look at him now. He knows there’s something brewing.
It unsettles him more than he wants to admit, because this wasn’t supposed to be anything big. This was supposed to be controlled, something he could walk away from whenever he wanted, something that existed for a small joke and nothing more. Something to piss off a semi annoying frat brother he’ll never see again after graduating.
So he reminds himself that this is fake. You are not his.
You’re sitting in the campus café alone for once, your laptop open in front of you with a book resting beside it. You’re completely absorbed in annotating a passage that you keep rereading to attempt to fully understand it, your pen moving quickly as you write in the margins.
You hear your name from a voice you recognize instantly, one that pulls you out of your focus completely.
You look up, and your ex is already standing there.
Your initial reaction is a firm downturn of your lips, but you smooth it over quickly, forcing your expression into a polite and composed look because you refuse to let him see anything else.
“Hey,” he says, like this is normal, like there is nothing complicated about showing up uninvited at your table. “Can I sit?”
You hesitate for a brief moment, your fingers pausing against the page, before you nod.
“Sure,” you say, closing your book slightly as he takes the seat across from you.
Across the cafe, Schlatt has already seen enough. You told him you were going there to study a bit. He was stopping by to distract you for a bit, let you have a well-deserved break cause he knew you needed it.
He notices the way your posture shifts the second your ex sits down, the way your expression becomes mellow.
From where he stands, he notices the way your ex leans forward, the way you stay seated, the way neither of you makes any move to end the conversation. He tells himself it doesn’t matter, that this is exactly what this arrangement was meant for, that you were never his to begin with, but the longer he watches, the less convincing those thoughts feel.
“I heard you’ve been… busy,” your ex hesitates, leaning back slightly as he studies you.
You glance at him, confused. “What does that mean?”
“You and Schlatt,” he shrugs. Schlatt’s name sounds strange coming from his mouth.
“What about it?” you shrug back. It’s none of his business, you think.
“The brothers tease him that he’s always over at yours. Ted said he’s been sleeping over,” he replies, his lips pursed tightly, “is that true?”
You let out a small breath, shaking your head as you close your laptop. You don’t feel like studying there anymore. “You don’t really get to have an opinion on that.”
“I’m just saying,” he trails off, his voice lower now, “you guys don’t exactly make sense.”
“We don’t have to make sense to you,” you furrow your brows.
“Is it real?” your ex asks.
You hesitate, caught off guard by the question. It isn’t. You know it isn’t, but you know you want it to be.
Your inner conflict is interrupted when your ex huffs a laugh, “That’s what I thought.”
Your brows knit together closer. “What does that mean?”
“It means Schlatt wouldn’t be with someone like you,” he says, standing up slowly, expression monotone as if he hasn’t said anything cruel. “It just didn’t make sense. To me, to his friends.”
The words pierce at you like swords, as he leaves you sitting there wounded.
You sit where you are, staring at the empty space across from you, thoughts tangled and you don’t have the energy to try to decipher them. You don’t even notice Schlatt approaching until he’s already in front of you, taking the seat your ex just left behind.
You look up immediately, relief flashing across your face before you can stop it. “Hi.”
“Everything good?” he asks. His tone is strained.
“Yeah,” you reassure him quickly. “Yeah, he just came out of nowhere.”
Schlatt nods once, then looks past your shoulder out the window.
“It didn’t look like nothing,” he pushes.
You frown. “It wasn’t anything.”
“You stayed,” he says, but it sounds more of a question than anything.
The comment catches you off guard. “What was I supposed to do, just tell him to leave?”
“I don’t know,” he replies, his tone sharpens. “You could’ve.”
It sounds accusatory. Like you did something wrong.
“Why are you acting like this?”
Schlatt sits there, right in front of you. He’s studying you, and you feel the weight of his gaze on you. You hold eye contact for a moment, waiting for him to say what you hope he’ll say.
You hope that he feels the same as you, that he wants this to be real.
Instead, he looks away. Your blood runs cold.
“It just didn’t look like you needed me,” he says, finally.
“What?” you squint. He’s not making any sense to you.
He waves his hands around, like the answer should be obvious. “You seemed fine.”
And you feel stupid. Schlatt’s referring to the bet. Of course, now that he’s seen you with your ex, he’s done with you. You want to explain everything to him, explain that your ex isn’t jealous, that even if he was, you only want Schlatt. You only want him.
“That’s not-” you start, but he’s already pushing his chair back.
“This was kind of the point, right?” he shrugs, his voice flat. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” you say, more quickly this time. You just want him to listen.
He steps back, and you feel the distance between you two in every way possible. You get up quickly and hold his wrist, making him pause. “Just stop. Okay? I don’t want to make a scene, but will you please just stay and hear me out?”
Schlatt looks at you, at your desperate, pleading eyes. He can’t say no.
You sigh in relief as he sits back down across from you. “Thank you.” You whisper.
He doesn’t say anything at all - which unsettles you deeply, but at least it gives you a chance to explain. “Listen, I think I’ve been trying to pretend this was all just a game, like you wanted. And it’s been really hard.”
Schlatt opens his mouth to speak, but you glare, threatening him to try. He puts his hands up in surrender and lets you keep going.
“At some point, I guess,” Why was it so hard for you to just say it?
“I guess I felt like this was real. Like you and me are real.” You look down at your notebook, scared. “And I didn’t hate it,” Shrugging, your cheeks rush with heat, “in fact, I really liked it.”
You muster up the courage to look into his eyes. Schlatt looks so small in front you, his cheeks matching yours and his usually big stature seeming meek for once. “I like you. More than just friends. More than whatever this is. And I don’t care about my ex or this stupid act. I just care about you. I’d like to be with you, if you’d let me.”
You trail off, letting your confession sit. You admire how Schlatt looks, flustered and shy. It’s a side of him you’ve never seen before, and you want to cherish it forever.
“It’s not a stupid act.” He finally says. “It hasn’t been an act for me for a while now.”
Beaming, you giggle, “Really?”
“So,” you draw out, “are we dating now?”
He scoffs, “What, are we in middle school?”
“Oh,” you exclaim, “God forbid a girl wants some clarification."
Schlatt finally smiles back at you, “Yes, we’re dating.”
He starts to get back up, packing up your highlighters and pens into your pencil case. “Now, let’s go. Enough studying. I’m taking you out on a real date.”
song: adorn by miguel
ok im not like 100% in love with this, this was supposed to be 2 parts but honestly just wanted it to be one
i also envisioned lunch club schlatt while writing this but let ur imagination do ur thing idc
