#5 is the splash zone. 2 is out of the question bc I would never get between young love

[eccentriccowboy]

Assassin// pt. 1

Synopsis: ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ inspired story where y/n and her best friends Luke, Calum, Ashton, and Michael compete in a game of Assassin.

you do not need to have read TATBILB to get this, it’ll be explained. But basically assassin is like tag where you have a specific target, but someone else is also targeting you. The game occurs in all hours in all places, unless otherwise disclosed as a safe zone. If you get tagged you are eliminated while the person who tagged you takes your target, tracking and chasing each other until there is one survivor.

Pairing: Slow burn relationship between bestfriend!Luke and Y/N (seems to be my specialty huh)

Warnings: swearing probably knowing me. also i didnt proofread this

Word Count: 1.7 k

Notes: i finally had time to write today bc school was cancelled today because of a hurricane warning WOOP WOOP I MIGHT DIE BUT AT LEAST I WONT HAVE MATH HOMEWORK.

*****

Rules:

1. Every house/apartment and workspace is a safe zone for all players.

2. A player is only eliminated when both the tracker’s hands are rested somewhere on the target’s body.

3. You can only kill your target, you can make alliances with someone, but you cannot make the kill for them.

4, Alliances are per round(until you/your alliance get out one or both of your target). After that you must either go separate ways or you can negotiate another alliance.

5. Winner gets to ask whatever they want of one of the losers.

6. No hard feelings and definitely no sore losers.

*****

“I’m not leaving my house, that’s how I’ll win,” Luke decided. Before you could correct him on how awful of a plan that was, he realized his mistake. “Wait, no, shit, that wouldn’t work,” he furrowed his eyebrows, clearly conflicted on what to do. 

“Don’t even bother coming up with a plan, I’ll get you out before you come up with step one,” Michael bragged. You rolled your eyes at that one.

“You shouldn’t be talking, mister. Remember last year when you were first out?” you smugly chided.

Michael’s face fell for a moment, before deciding to tease you back.

“Hey, at least I’ve won a year,” he remarked, subtly reminding you of how through the 15 years of playing Assassin with your four childhood best friends, you’ve never won once. “Four, actually,” he smirked, before getting off your couch to head to the fridge.

“Think you’re forgetting almighty Ashton over here, mates,” Ashton said, including himself in the conversation. He stood up from his seat on the couch and raised his hands in the air, pretending like a crowd was chanting his name. “Ashton, Ashton, Ashton...” he mumbled jokingly.

You giggled at your foolish friend’s behaviour. “You won’t even know what hitcha this time. I’m telling ya this is my year,” you nodded your head, not sure if you were trying to convince him or yourself.

Luke smiled at you, always the optimist. Luke had won the least amount of games over the years, besides you. He has only ever won twice, whereas Michael has won four, Calum’s won three, and Ashton has remained reigning champ with six wins.

“Never late for a comeback, Y/N,” Luke slung his arm around you casually, rubbing your shoulder. You hoped to dear god he couldn’t hear your heartbeat quicken as you leaned in to his embrace.

You don’t honestly know when you developed feelings for Luke, you just know they weren’t good. You have been friends with him since first grade, it’s not like you can throw away such a valuable friendship for a stupid relationship that wouldn’t ever work.

Instead, you calmed down your heartbeat as best as you could and hugged Luke back, accepting the fact a relationship would never work. It was a sweet moment, though, embracing Luke no matter your relationship status

“Can’t make a comeback when you can’t even win once!” Michael yelled from the kitchen, ruining the moment. You sighed, before getting up from the couch to grab a piece of paper and a pen to write the names on.

“Where ya goin’?” Luke asked, missing your warm embrace.

“Gotta write the names down somewhere,” you replied, opening your desk drawer. 

“Thought we were gonna wait ‘til Calum gets here,” he questioned.

You shrugged. “Gonna get a head start. Also wanna rig it so I get Michael’s name first.”

*****

Once Calum had arrived, you had already prepared the pieces of paper in a large hat for you guys to pick from. 

“Ready to be beaten to ground, losers?” Michael started again.

“No time for smack talk, let’s just get this over with so I can win,” you said. You shook the hat to scramble the papers, then one at a time you each selected a paper.

You grabbed the last paper, holding it close to your chest where no one but you could see what it said.

‘Michael”.

You tried your best to keep a straight face, while analyzing your competitor’s expressions. Calum and Luke both had on poker faces, while Ashton and Michael smirked at their slip of paper.

“Well this is gonna be fun,” Ashton remarked.

*****

You wanted to wait a while to kill Michael, as you basically had all the time in the world. Hell, these games could go on forever. In 2015, the game last over three months before Calum finally got Michael out.

And the longer you wait, the other guys will start attacking each other and dwindle themselves down, leaving less work for you to do. You just had to stay careful and not get caught by your attacker.

You devised a plan: you would only cook at home or order in for the duration of the game, you’ll switch up the route you drive to work every weekday. Say goodbye to a social life for a while because you aren’t going out anytime soon. But you will keep your eyes open if an opportunity arrises to strike Michael.

It continued like this for a week, and nobody made any moves. Everyone seemed to be keeping to themselves, hiding themselves from the rest. As far as you know, no alliances had been made, either.

As the days passed by and the game remained static, you began to become antsy. You wanted to make a splash, a big move that will shock the other players. It was time to get creative.

By the end of the day, you had a devious plan. The plan took time, persuasion, and dedication, but oh boy would it be worth it when you got Michael out.

*****

You had snuck out of your apartment complex at 3 am last night in hopes your attacker wasn’t watching you. You then got into your car and drove in the dead of night to Michael’s apartment building. 

Now here’s the part of the plan that would take great dedication. You parked your car outside of the apartment complex, far enough away where Michael could not see the car if he looked out one of his windows. You wandered to the back alley behind the building, pepper spray in hand in case the worst was to occur.

With no one around, you grabbed your phone out of your purse and turned the flashlight on, shining it on the floor until you found what you were looking for: the garbage cans. 

You weren’t going to rummage through stranger’s trash, you weren’t insane. But you did merely open the lid and peer into the cans to see what food you might find. And there, laying at the top of the fourth garbage can you checked, were empty cardboard pizza boxes.

Dominoes. Michael’s favourite pizza place.

And there were 5 of them. Enough to last a grown man about a week and a half. Almost as if this mysterious man was living off of delivery pizza instead of going out.

This couldn’t be a coincidence. You knew Michael would be too lazy to cook his own food. Now you just needed to use this information to your advantage.

*****

“Psst!” you whisper shouted to the delivery man standing at the entrance to Michael’s apartment complex, waiting for access.

“Psst!” you whisper shouted a bit louder, finally gaining the man’s attention.

He looked at you, bewildered, his eyes shifting from you to the locked gate then back to you. Finally, he took a few timid steps in your direction, where you were hiding in a bush. 

“Um, yeah?” the man asked, clearly still uncertain about the potentially insane women hiding in a fucking bush.

“I need to ask you a favor,” you put your hands out in front of your body in attempt to show him you were harmless. “Hear me out, okay? I’m playing this game with my friends, it’s called assassin. It’s basically just a harmless game of tag. Your delivering this pizza to 22B, yea?”

The man looked at you skeptically, before murmuring out a yes.

“Okay, well you see, the guy who ordered the pizza, his name is Michael, I’ve got to tag him out. Will you help me out?” you continued before he could say no. “Your part is super simple. All you have to do is tell Michael the gate won’t let you in and see if he will step out to come get it. I can’t get him while he is in his home.”

The man continued to stare at you. “What’s in it for me?”

You shrugged, “Name your price.”

“100 bucks,” he shrugged back.

“50,” 

“60,”

“Fine,” you rolled your eyes. “Just make sure he doesn’t see me, and if I don’t get him out, you don’t get paid.”

The man agreed to your terms, then called Michael back. “Hey, man, the electric gate’s giving me a bit of trouble. Do you mind coming downstairs to grab the pizza?” The man listened to Michael’s response, then looked at you and gave you a thumbs up.

“He’s coming down,” he said. You nodded, your heartbeat suddenly picking up. Oh god, what if you mess it up? 

You went back to your position in the bush, close enough to the gate entrance that you could jump out and place both of your hands on Michael easily.

As you waited for your unsuspecting friend to come downstairs, you reflected on the craziness you endured to get here. You stayed up until 3 am just to rifle through stranger’s garbage, for Pete’s sake! You deserved this win already.

Finally, you saw a tall man start walking to open up the gate. “Sorry, man, this happens all the time. I’m surprised it’s taken you this many deliveries this past week for it to finally happen to you,” Michael called out.

“No problem man, less work for me,” the worker chuckled. Michael opened the gate, suddenly distracted with trying to find the proper bills in his wallet. This was your chance. 

You lunged out of the bushes, your hands stretched in front of you. In the corner of Michael’s eye he saw a body of sudden movement, his head turning, but it was too late. Both of your palms landed on his left arm.

“AHA, take that!” You raised your hands in the air in victory. Michael clutched his head in his hands, in disbelief his game was over so soon.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, SHIT!” He uttered.

“What? Got no creative one-liners for this, huh?” You smirked.

“Yea, yea, just have fun with who you’ve gotta get next.”

Your ears perked at that. There’s still four other players blocking your way to victory.

“Who is it?” It was Michael’s turn to smirk now.

“Ashton.”

Well shit.