#tamlin getting cute pigtails

[lainalit]

Headcanon: Band of exiles + Elain and Tamlin having a sleepover party, where were braid each others hair and paint their nails, while their gossiping about the inner circle 💞🥰

[bastardsonofday]

It Starts with a Bike Lock

written to blow off steam

i felt bad theres no content im producing so have this *shrug emoji*

You accidently locked your bike to mine and i cant leave until you get off work au

ao3    chapter two

The first words Lucien Vanserra ever says to Rhysand Fitznox are “Hey Asshole!”

Rhysand knows Lucien Vanserra, the other man is a lackey of his worst enemy (though the two have never spoke before, only glared across the room at one another while Tamlin ranted), but he doesn’t know what in specific he’s done to incur Vanserra’s wrath. The man is sitting on the ground though his meeting with Rhysand’s Second ended quite a while ago (Rhysand is sure). He glares up at Rhys, his red hair braided professionally in dutch pigtails (Rhys almost giggles at the sight, he looks so… hot, but odd if he has to be honest). Lucien’s prosthetic eye doesn’t swivel up to meet his, instead staring blankly ahead. His legs are pulled up to his butt to let people pass on the sidewalk, and there is a small pile of coins next to him as if someone tossed him them because they thought he was homeless—which Rhys is pretty sure he’s not.

“Pardon?” Rhys says slowly.

“What have you never used a fucking lock before? Do you know how long I had to wait here, you ass? Tamlin’s already back at headquarters and I here I am waiting for you, you fucking moron-”

“I’m sorry, why are you insulting me?”

Lucien stares at him like he’s crazy. He points to the rack of bikes next to him. One of which is Rhysand’s. Normally Rhys doesn’t even own a bike but Elain made him start this ‘Go Green!’ initiative so to be a good leader he bought a bike and promised to bike to work every day for a month, which isn’t that hard since he lives in a penthouse about a mile from his company.

Today is the third day of Rhys’ promise. It is also the third day he’s ever used a bike lock.

“You locked my bike to yours, dumbass.” Lucien snarls. “I had to wait for you to get off for lunch because your secretary wouldn’t let me back up to make you unlock it yourself. And I can’t cut it open without a power tool because it’s metal.”

Fuck.

“Well? Aren’t you going to at least apologize?” Lucien asks. He stands and even stomps his foot on the ground, which almost breaks Rhysand.

Rhysand swallows his laughter at the absurd situation. To laugh at Lucien would only make him angrier, and while Lucien is certainly cute while he was angry and fun to play with, Rhys senses now was not the time.

“Jeez, dude.” Rhys says instead, unable to curb all of his laughter. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

“Open. Your. Lock.” Lucien snarls.

Rhys bends down to unlock the bike. “You know, I’m impressed that you biked here. I assumed you’d take Tamlin’s car.”

“I assumed you took a limo to work, we’re all wrong sometimes.” Lucien says without any cheer in his voice.

Rhys fiddles with the combination lock… what had he set it to, again? “‘Go Green!’ month. You?”

“I always bike if the meeting is under fifteen miles.”

Rhys’ eyes widened and whistled appreciatively. “Fifteen miles? And you always show up looking that good?”

“Well, we can’t all be as perfect as me. I’m sure if you tried to bike somewhere, you’d end up looking like a drowned rat.”

“Hey! I bike to and from my home!”

“And how far away is your home from here?”

Rhys turns around smirking. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Lucien rolls his eyes. “Are you done yet?”

“Ahh...” Rhys had been having so much fun sniping with Lucien he… may have… forgotten his seven digit code. “About that...”

Lucien’s eyes widen. “No. No no no no no! You have got to be fucking with me.”

Rhys laughs guiltily. “Believe me, that would be so much more fun than this.”

“Well? Who else knows the code, you utter dipshit?” Lucien snarls.

“Uhhh-” Rhysand’s mind was mysteriously blank.

“You jackass.”

“It’s not like I did this on purpose!”

“I don’t really care about anything you have to say right now unless it’s the code to that lock!”

Rhys sighs and looks at his watch. As much fun as it is to play with Lucien, he has a meeting with Thesan in five minutes in a place that can only be reached that quickly in a car at this moment.

“Look, I have to go to lunch. Why don’t you come with me and afterwards I’ll-?”

“You really think that now is the best time to ask me to lunch?” Lucien snapped.

“I have a meeting.” Rhys explains impatiently. “Come with me and if I remember the code, when it’s over and we come back I’ll give it to you.”

“No. You can go to your fun little meeting after we deal with this. I will go down with you right now, to the maintenance department and get a power-saw or something of some kind and we will come back and cut through that lock.”

“You can’t do that!”

Lucien crosses his arms, glaring. “Go ahead. Do it. Tell me why not.”

“It’s an expensive lock!”

“An. Expensive. Lock.”

“Yeah! It was like a whole, eighty seven dollars!”

“Eight seven dollars? If you paid eighty-seven dollars for that crap, then you’ve got bigger problems than me, Rhys.”

“It was for charity.” Rhys snaps.

“Besides, that’s petty change for you.”

“It’s the principle!”

“Rhys, we are going down to maintenance, together, right now. And you will ask for the power-tool yourself. Then you will cut off the lock, or I will go to every tabloid with a following and give them a special exclusive about the time that Rhysand Fitznox invited me to lunch after locking my bike with his.”

Rhys narrows his eyes. “So?”

“There will be many other details in this story, ones that may not have actually happened. Who’s to say?”

As much as Rhys wasn’t afraid of Lucien Vanserra… he was, well, a tiny bit afraid of Lucien Vanserra (the man had brought down entire companies with five well placed words to the press), he doesn’t want to make an enemy of him.

“You suck.” Rhys mumbles.

“Don’t you wish.” Lucien replies, and waves a hand for Rhys to lead the way.

Rhys grumbles, but does.

Lucien follows Rhys into his building. Rhys walks up to the front desk where Cerridwen and Nuala sit expertly answering phones. Nuala puts the person she’s talking to on hold and looks up expectantly at her boss. “Yes, Sir?”

“Um...” Now this is embarrassing, Rhysand thinks. He glances at Lucien whose stormy gaze tells him to turn around and start talking. “So… I may have accidentally chained my bike to Lucien’s here...”

Nuala’s face stays completely the same, though Rhysand knows she’s laughing on the inside. Cerridwen stops in her work to listen in, amused by the story already. “And… I forgot the passcode...”

“Do you want me to open it, sir?”

Rhys looks at her surprised. “You know my passcode?”

“You know his passcode and you didn’t tell me?” Lucien cries. “I’ve been sitting there for ages! You knew I was sitting there for ages!”

“I don’t know it, but Mr. Fitznox-Ah, your brother, sir, does.”

Rhys slams the heel of his palm into his forehead. “Az! Of course he does!”

Lucien is turning a delightful shade of purple, and Rhys wonders if this is the first time he’ll actually be able to see smoke come out of someone’s ears for real, just like they do in the cartoons.

Lucien is not very amused by the expression on Rhys’ face right now.

“Rhys, I’ll have your head on a platter. Then, I’m coming for you because you’ve been no help,” He says pointing a long delicate finger at Nuala, “and you’ll get your own for laughing at this,” he says as that finger finds it’s way to point at Cerridwen who is badly hiding her snickers into the telephone in her hand. “And finally, I’ll get Azriel Fitznox, just for the fun of it.”

Lucien snatches the phone and receiver from Nuala’s hand and speed-dials Azriel (whose speed-dial button has a label on it). He explains in clipped sentences the situation to Azriel and Rhys puts in his own two cents by graciously ‘ordering’ (he can’t really order his brothers to do anything for him if he’s being honest) Az to come down to the ground floor immediately and fix this.  

When Azriel Fitznox gets the very angry call from the secretary desk with Lucien Vanserra on the other side of the line he thinks he’s having some weird fever dream or nightmare. But no, Lucien Vanserra, the CFO of Spring Court & Co really is on his phone angrily yelling about… a bike lock? And Rhysand having the memory of an eighty year old Alzheimer's patient or something…? Azriel isn’t exactly sure.

But he is trying very hard not to laugh.

Lucien seems very serious though and when Rhys puts in “Yeah… you’d better get down here now with my code,” Azriel sighs and tells his brother that he’ll be right down.

He walks down to the ground floor and finds Lucien tapping his foot angrily and Rhys standing next to him very sheepishly. “What did you do?” Azriel asks Rhys mockingly. Rhys flashes him a smirk but Lucien is not amused.

“Do you have the password or not?” Lucien snaps.

Azriel nods and he walks past Lucien, glad the CFO can’t see how he can’t hold it together. Azriel walks out to the bike rack and bends down next to his brother’s bike. He moves the nine digit tumblers into place. “It’s the date and time you beat Spring Co out for the Summer contracts, don’t you remember that?” Az asks his brother.

Rhys face-palms. “Of course! How could I forget?”

This does not make Lucien any happier apparently. Azriel unravels the lock from around Lucien’s bike and he grabs it from the rack, shaking it roughly. “I hate you people and I am bringing all of you down with me.” He snarls at them. He swings one leg over the bike and speeds into the street and off to Spring Court & Co buildings.

“Nice doing business with you!” Rhys calls after his red-headed rival. Then, Azriel and Rhysand exchange glances at one another and promptly burst into the laughter that they’ve been holding in during this whole ordeal.

Rhysand walks into his meeting room to find his closest confidants hysterically rolling about. “Oh?” Rhys asks, an eyebrow raised. “What’s so funny?”

Cassian points to the tabloids fanned out on the table. Rhys pulled the magazines over to him, reading the headlines, beginning to laugh himself until he found himself crying.

CFO LUCIEN VANSERRA OPENS UP ON THE INNER WORKINGS OF NIGHT COURT INCORPORATED; “RHYSAND IS PETTY AND CAN’T REMEMBER FOR SHIT AND I’VE GOT THE STORY TO PROVE IT.”