The biggest literary flex was when Elizabeth rejected Mr. Collins’ proposal and everyone thought she was crazy since she couldn’t possibly get such a good opportunity ever again and then she married one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors in the best “surprise, bitches!” move ever
I’m back mes bébés
Not for very long, but I’m trying
Anyway, you know the drill
Darcy/Lizzie, soulmate au
Lizzie meets her soulmate in a statistically improbable, but obviously possible, way in that she punches him in the face during a bar fight.
As a rule, Lizzie does not get into fights at bars. In fact, she very rarely goes to bars where fights happen at all. She frequents the local dive bar on the corner where the owner knows her by name and keeps her favorite cider on tap. Her uncle Frank’s bar does a good business, but he never lets the crowd get too rowdy. Which is why she should’ve insisted George Knightley and the rest of her college buddies meet her there, instead of Bingley’s Bar and Grill in the middle of downtown, prime real estate for drunken assholes.
Her second mistake was spotting Lydia across the room and deciding to say something.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Lizzie hisses, grabbing her underage sister’s arm after swimming through the masses that had separated them.
Lydia wrenches herself out of Lizzie’s grip with some effort, both because Lizzie’s hand is a vice and Lydia is on her way to being very drunk. “You’re not Mom, Lizzie.”
“Thank God for that.” Lizzie wraps her arm around Lydia this time and starts dragging her towards the exit, despite Lydia’s protests. “If I was Mom I would’ve kicked your ass when it needed kicking.”
Before Lydia can retort, some guy more drunk than Lydia is appears. “Hey, what’re you doing with my girl?”
Something about the voice makes Lizzie squint, and, even through tequila-colored glasses, she recognizes him from when she was at college eight years ago. “Wickham?”
“Hey, Lizzy B!”
She groans and continues tugging Lydia towards the exit. “Oh my God, Lydia, you know he’s 32, right?”
“We’re in love,” Lydia whines. “Let me go.”
Wickham grabs Lydia’s arm. “Yeah, let her go, Liz. We’re here to have a good time.”
Lizzie opens her mouth to argue, before a guy looking like the bouncer walks up. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
After that, things go blurry, with Lizzie arguing with Lydia, Wickham, and the bouncer all at once. George comes over to try and break it up, with someone she’d seen sitting at the bar earlier. She’s thankful for backup, until the stranger opens his mouth and insinuates her sister is the problem. It’s the last straw in a bad night, so she makes a fist, pulls it back, and hits him square in the face.
The pain radiating up her arm is the first thing she notices, and the blossoming of color over his face second, a starburst of pinks and blues around his eye. She can’t say anything, because as soon as she notices the mark, she’s being dragged out the bar, slung over the bouncer’s shoulder. Thankfully, she notices George doing the same thing with Lydia, so at least she doesn’t have to worry about that, too.
Once they’re outside, Lizzie thinks she’ll have time to process the situation, but then Jane pulls up and is the maddest Lizzie has ever seen her. After an hour of lecturing that is mostly directed at Lydia, Lizzie finds herself bundled up on her couch, Charlotte and George examining her hand as Jane drives Lydia home.
“You didn’t even get his name?” Charlotte asks George incredulously, rubbing her thumb over Lizzie’s pastel knuckles.
George sighs and rubs the back of his neck, leaning back into his seat. “All I saw was Lizzie arguing with Wickham and knew it wasn’t going to end well. I didn’t even notice the guy following me until he said something.”
“I can’t believe I had to work,” Charlotte grumbles, finally dropping Lizzie’s hand. “I would’ve gotten his name.”
“No, you would’ve been throwing punches, too.”
Charlotte sighs. “Yeah, probably.” She jostles Lizzie’s shoulder. “Liz, you okay? You’re awful quiet.”
Lizzie is also feeling uncomfortably sober. “This can’t be happening to me.”
George rolls his eyes. “Only you would be upset about having a soulmate.”
“Oh, shut up,” Lizzie says without any heat. “I would be happy if my soulmate wasn’t an asshole.”
“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” George insists. “You were pretty drunk.”
“Not drunk enough, apparently.”
“We’re just going to have to go back tomorrow,” Charlotte tells her matter-of-factly. “I bet he’s going to do the same.”
Her soulmate does not, in fact, do the same. Charlotte and Jane drag her to the bar and talk to the bartender. He’s not very helpful, but he’s cute, and takes a shining to Jane. While Lizzie leaves her number with him in case her soulmate wants to get in touch, Jane gives him hers for more personal reasons.
Lizzie goes into the bar a few more times but, after no success, gives up. If her soulmate isn’t going to put any effort into finding her, she’ll be damned if she puts effort into finding him. She’s happy in her life, and doesn’t need anyone else to complete it.
She recognizes, of course, that soulmates are so rare, people don’t try and find them. They’re considered miracles, but she’s never put much stock in those, so she doesn’t see the point in making it her life now. Charlotte says Lizzie is driving her crazy, but she feels most of their friendship has been like that.
Jane, on the other hand, has been having a great time with the bartender from the bar, who turns out to also be the owner, Charlie. The first brush of their fingers had sparked red and orange lightning strikes racing up their arms. Statistically improbable, but again, possible.
It’s cute, really. They’re both cheerful and kind, though Charlie is a little bit louder and more outgoing. Still, their matching smiles do more than enough to balm Lizzie’s bruised ego. So when Charlie throws a party to introduce his friends to Jane’s, Lizzie is happy to go.
She likes Charlie, so she’s expecting to have a good time. Which she does, dancing and laughing with Charlotte and her sisters. Lydia has been grounded forever, but Mary and Kitty come, too. All that comes to a screeching halt when she overhears Charlie talking to someone in the hallway as she makes her way to the bathroom.
“So this is why I haven’t seen you in over three months? Did you even go to California or was that just a lie to cover your ass?” Charlie sounds mildly annoyed, which is madder than Lizzie thought he was capable of being.
The voice is deeper than his and sounds regretful. “Charles -”
“Don’t ‘Charles’ me, Will. You knew Jane’s sister was looking for her soulmate, so you hid like a coward.”
“I didn’t want to know why some drunken asshole was my soulmate, Charles! I’d rather not have one at all.”
Lizzie is mildly tipsy at worst, so she’s able to quickly put two and two together. Her suspicions are correct, when she turns the corner and sees Charlie talking to the man she punched in the face that night, blue and pink decorating the better part of the right side of his face. She clears her throat, and feels a vicious enjoyment at seeing the shock on both their faces.
“I think I’ll be going now, Charlie. Go hit up an AA meeting since I’m such a drunken asshole.”
Charlie looks concerned. “Listen, Lizzie -”
He’s interrupted by his friend, who opens his mouth angrily. “It’s not like you made a better impression!”
“Oh, fuck off,” she snaps. “You don’t know anything about what was going on, and if you hadn’t called my little sister a slut I wouldn’t have punched you.”
“I did not call her a slut!”
“No, you just told her if she focused on studying instead of dating she wouldn’t find herself in situations like that!” The man opens his mouth to continue arguing, but she holds up her hand. “I’m not arguing with you anymore. Clearly the universe fucked up, so don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.”
She storms away and out the back door, since the front door is the wrong way to be walking. It makes her feel like an idiot when she has to hoist herself over the fence, only to fall on her face, but she’ll be damned if she has to walk past her soulmate again.
Jane calls her, approximately ten minutes after she’s made it back to her apartment. “Lizzie, where are you?”
“Home,” she grumbles. “I’m not coming back.”
Her older sister sighs. “I’m not going to ask you to. I was just wondering if you were okay.”
Lizzie sighs and sags against her pillows. “I’m sorry, I should’ve texted. I made it home safe and I’m going to bed now.”
“That’s better.” Jane pauses. “For the record, I’m sorry it turned out this way, Lizzie.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
For good measure, Lizzie texts Charlotte that she's safe and home, too, before turning out the lights and staring up at the ceiling. Anger is still running through her veins, but she knows herself well enough to accept sleep is the best option. She does not need to get into another physical fight this year.
The next thing she knows, someone is knocking on her door at four in the morning. She blinks blearily and checks her phone three times to make sure she’s reading the time right. Once she realizes it really is four in the morning, she closes her eyes and throws her blankets over her face, willing the knocking to stop. It doesn’t work and, if anything, the knocking just gets louder.
Groaning, she wraps her comforter around herself and hobbles to the door, throwing it open with a scowl, to find her asshole soulmate standing on the other side.
“Um, hi. Sorry, did I wake you?”
She stares at him and tightens her hold on her blanket. “Yeah.”
“Sorry,” he repeats, before shoving his hands in his pockets. “Can I, um, is it okay if I come in?”
Her night is already shot to hell, and this is weird enough as it is, so - “Sure.”
He awkwardly follows her as she leads him to her living room, where she curls up on the couch and watches him from her blanket burrito. It seems like he’s waiting for her to say something, so she merely raises her eyebrows at him.
He sighs. “I wanted to apologize for how I’ve acted, been acting. Those things you heard me say to Charles -”
“Yeah, yeah, drunk asshole -”
“No,” he insists. “I mean, you could be, but honestly? I was scared.”
She blinks rapidly and feels herself wake up. “Because I punched you in the face?”
He laughs. “No, although your right hook is pretty good. I was scared because I assumed I would never have a soulmate. My life has been so focused on my job and, uh, raising my sister, so romance hasn’t been something I’ve had time for. It never occurred to me I would be destined for one.”
The speech warms her heart grudgingly. “I’m scared, too, if it helps any. I’ve never had a great track record with guys.”
“Yeah, well.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Can we just start over?”
She laughs despite herself, and sticks her hand out in front of her. “I’m Lizzie, I’m sorry I punched you in the face.”
His grin is charming, and he runs his thumb over her knuckles as he turns her hand to kiss it, sending a shiver down her spine. “I’m Will, and I’m sorry I was a jerk about your sister.”
‘Your friend—without a name—sounds nice. I’ll be happy to meet her.’
Georgie snickered. ‘Good. And don’t frown at her and scare her off. She’s very nice. And pretty. And really smart.’ Her voice became sharp with warning. ‘Oh, and don’t wear one of your stodgy suits. Smile and play nice.’
He laughed. ‘Fine, George! I promise to not scare off your friend and to not embarrass you with my clothes.’
