#I cannot fathom a situation in which they'd be forced to work together

[camilaquintanalopez]

Closed for @franciscofontenelle

Where: Chapman University, Faculty of Sciences.

Recently, Camila had what could only be described as one of the most mortifying revelations she'd had in a while. She might be as bold as saying the most mortifying ever, but you know, she did have the revelation that marrying her cheating boyfriend would be the cure to her issues and that was pretty mortifying. Although it was far from an epiphany, it was definitely a thought she'd had. Anyways. I'm sure you're now wondering what that mortifying, and I do mean mortifying revelation was. Simply: you cannot let him hinder your career. Well, anyone for that matters, but him, in that case, was, you guessed it, the one and only Francisco Fontenelle. It was no shock to learn that one needed a chainsaw to cut the tension in a room with those two, having learned the hard way that a knife would do very little damage. Being forced to actively work together as they were for the vetting of the candidates had marginally improved the situation, but there was such a long way to go, with no intent of actually walking that path, that the progress seemed minuscule.

Yet, with all of that, one might think that realisation was full of spite and disdain as he'd done something awful. Which would not be surprising to Camila, coming from her former friend. But that wasn't it. It wasn't even that he was doing anything to hinder her career, not actively at least. Sure, his presence made coming to work a little stressful, as she didn't know whether she'd see him or if they'd have to share a space, but other than that, he'd done the work that was needed and asked of him without complaining or trying to make it bad on purpose so she'd leave him alone. She had encountered people like that, especially men in the field, and she'd quite expected him to act that way, given his definite hatred towards her. But he didn't. Which was part of what made her consider this in the first place.

The easy solution? Let it go. It was just an idea, a good one of course, but an idea and it could, maybe should, stay that way. Things would be fine if she did let it go. There would be no bad consequences. It would be so, so, so much easier. And yet.

Yet, she couldn't shake that stupid idea off since she'd had it. She'd tried to convince herself against it. But then, well, then she had the revelation. She'd thought that ever since his arrival, but now, she'd realised that no letting anyone, including him, especially him, hinder her career also meant not passing up opportunities because they included him.

So now, she'd been glancing at him from her book in the lunch room of their shared faculty, trying to be sneaky about it. Thankfully, he was alone, so it would be easy to trap him into a discussion. While she was trying to remind herself that the worst he could say was no as if she was about to ask him on a date, she was more anxious about how to approach it. She'd wondered if she should go for a more sheepish, cutesy approach to try to bring him to her side but she'd genuinely shivered at the idea of almost trying to seducing him into working with her. An email would've been a lot easier, but she needed to see his face. One wrong micro-movement and she was out.

Doing her best to appear confident, she put her book down, stood up and walked towards Francisco's table with a paper in her hand. It mattered very little that he was probably trying to enjoy lunch in peace. She sat down in front of him with all the determination she could fathom. "Hi." She tentatively tried for a smile but decided a serious look was better. She hated that she was so nervous. "I think we should work together." You already do, you idiot. She passed him the paper, trying to focus more on it than on him. On it, she'd handwritten the idea and some more specific notes. "The protocol we need is good and works well and I think we should write an article on it together", she finished, finally looking up at him.

[mierolainen]

my partner said ‘levi be nice’ and this was the best I could do

(it’s a warlock pact talisman)