#and this is set prior to the events of 2x11 except rebecca has already announced her engagement to the office

[notbang]

R/N - #11

halloween prompt meme | read on ao3

It takes him a second to recognise her beneath the wig, but he should have guessed, really. Who else would rent a costume that takes up approximately one third of the office space with its multiple layers of petticoats?

He waits until Paula peels away from her side in the direction of the bathroom, his nostrils flaring at the probably health-code-violating screen of dry ice he has to push through in order to reach where she’s leaning against a column, eyes glued to her period-anachronous phone.

“Figures you’d be involved in this productivity suck somehow,” he says as he sidles up to her, hands stuffed in his pockets in a way he likes to think exudes nonchalance.

Rebecca regards him, unimpressed, over the top of the screen. He’s not sure if it’s the light reflecting from her phone, or her makeup, or both, but she’s even paler than usual; glowing alabaster amongst the dimly lit cubicles.  

Her answering laugh is entirely mocking. “I see your invite failed to get lost in the mail. Kudos on the costume, though—rich white dude is about the most repulsive thing I can think of.”

He gives a pointed once-over to her dress—a complex concoction of white frills and lace—and feels his lips curl back in a smirk. “Almost as terrifying as the prospect of eternal matrimony,” he agrees. “Once again, my deepest condolences, by the way.”

Any chance she has at supplying some kind of rejoinder in retort is squashed by the approach of a waiter—exactly how much money had Darryl spent on this thing, anyway?—with a round mop of black hair that looks like it escaped from a disco in the mid 70s, brandishing a tray boasting an array of dips and elaborately carved carrot sticks.

Rebecca frowns, apparently already somehow acquainted with the server. “Marty?”

“Rebecca B! This is where you work? How about that! Sweet digs. Sweet digs indeed.” The disco flunkey’s eyes light up when they roam across to Nathaniel. “And aren’t you two a fright for sore eyes? A perfectly spooky bride and groom! Yeah, that gaudy ring really finishes the look. That’s gotta be from that pawn shop over on East Cameron—they sell the weirdest old junk there. Something borrowed, something boo, am I right?”

The blossoming red blush breaks out across Rebecca’s chest like bright, blotchy watercolour beneath her skin.

“It’s not—we’re not…” she begins, face scrunching. “This is not—he’s not even wearing a costume!”

Nathaniel, amused enough at her discomfort that his disdain for the entire scenario is secondary, catches the eye of the source of her distress over her shoulder, shaking his head minutely to confirm the absurdity of the assumption.

He can’t help himself, though—his palm finds the small of her back of its own accord. Rebecca’s eyes, if possible, bug even wider as he tugs her towards him. “It never feels like a costume when it’s as real as what we have, though, does it, Muffin?”

Marty lets out a low, appreciative whistle. “Right on—I hear you, buddy. Hope you two enjoy the… patê,” he adds, indicating the tray of dips before disappearing with a playful shimmy.

Barking out a polite laugh at the eye roll-inducing pun, Nathaniel shepherds a still spluttering Rebecca into the break room—currently empty, ostensibly in favour of the makeshift dance floor forming over by the elevator—before promptly dropping his hand away from her back as if badly burned.

“Muffin?!” she seethes as as she whirls to face him, giving him an incredulous shove before batting haphazardly at his chest with her tiny, ineffectual fists.

“It only seemed apropos,” he drawls, lazily, “given how many of them you eat.”

“You…” she growls, then shakes herself, her train of thought seemingly lost to her irritation. “Why are you even here? I thought you couldn’t be within a ten mile radius of candy without your teeth literally falling out.”

“Ha ha,” he says with exaggerated sarcasm. “As distasteful as this entire embarrassing excuse of party is, it is a company event. It’d be unseemly of me not to at least make an appearance.”

“Couldn’t resist ruining everyone’s fun, more like it. God, it’s like everything is some kind of masturbatory performance with you, isn’t it?”

Her ample bosom, amplified by the cut of her gown and in considerable clear and present danger of spilling over and out entirely, rises and falls with the uneven rhythm of her steadily mounting frustration.

Not that he’s looking, or anything. Just that it’s making some kind of point of filling up his field of vision.

“Please,” he sneers, looking down the ridge of his nose and being careful to focus on her splotchy face rather than directly below it as he gestures out towards the bullpen. “Are you telling me you didn’t choose that costume as some sort of dry run for your impending nuptials to the flip flop? I bet you’ve been parading around in that dress all evening, flashing that ring at anyone that so much as glances in your direction. Congratulations, by the way—purple is his colour. Really makes that pawn shop gemstone pop when it’s curled around your fiancé’s spandex covered bicep.”

“There was a slight miscommunication on which Phantom he was dressing up as, okay,” Rebecca snaps. “And I’m not bothered by it, because it’s a charming anecdote that I’m going to tell all the Jewish-Filipino babies we’re going to have every year on Halloween.”

He forces out a sardonic laugh. “Well, have fun with that. Remind me again—why is this a Halloween party?”

“It’s Halloween in September,” she says, incomprehensibly defensive, the no duh implicit in her voice. She crosses her arms, and it does nothing to coax her heaving cleavage back into its confines. “It’s like Christmas in July, except for Halloween. Darryl’s a big fan of mixing things up, unlike you—we get it, dude! You like burgundy ties!”

Just as a riposte is forming on the tip of his tongue, Jim—an eyesore in bright red pleather if one ever existed—barrels through the break room with a drunk and disorderly, vampire-fang-bearing Tim hot on his heels, forcing Nathaniel to sidestep abruptly out of their path. The issue with that is, he fails to notice until he hears the resulting sharp intake of breath, is that it has him pressing Rebecca into the corner of the bench in front of the tinsel-adorned coffee maker.

The smart thing to do would be to step away. The dangerous thing—the stupidest decision possible, really—would be to stand his ground. To loom and crowd her further.

God, it’s like the idiocy of this place is seeping into him via osmosis.

Rebecca gulps, untamed breasts brushing distractingly against his sternum, and casts a frenzied glance out into the party proper, making sure no one is watching them through the slats.

A little light headed but ultimately spurred on by her fluster, Nathaniel straightens his spine and dips his head, voice tipping low to tease. “It still makes sense, you know. The costume choice. After all, your life is basically a soap opera. And nobody can blame you for wanting to hide that—” He nods towards the photocopier, where Josh is otherwise occupied with his attempts to get a Jenga game going with several desks’ worth of highlighters. “—away behind a mask.”

“Yeah, well,” she sputters, “it’s lucky that he got the costume wrong. Because his left is actually his best angle. Yeah. So you’d be missing out, otherwise. And you’re, like, so incredibly wrong. I don’t want to hide his face. I love that face. It’s my favourite face.” He doesn’t miss the way her gaze flits down to his lips, and his tongue darts out to wet it on autopilot. “I wanna rub my face all over his face, all the time.”

He leans in further, and he can’t be imagining it—the way her breath falters, and her eyelids start to flutter as his breath fans out across her face with deliberation. “Uh-huh.”

Interesting, he thinks, filing away the visible pluck of the cords in her neck as she swallows, as if in slow motion, to revisit later.

As if compelled by some inexplicable urge and drunk off finally, finally feeling like he has the upper hand, he tilts minutely, mouth moving towards grazing the shell of her ear. “I know it’ll be tempting, when you’re lying in bed tonight, trying to get the image of your mediocre choice of a life partner squeezed into a morph suit the colour of Barney dinosaur out of your head. But do me a favour, Rebecca, hmm? Try not to—” He pauses dramatically for effect. “—think of me.”

He can tell by the way her eyes widen with surprise for a split second only to scrunch in confusion that she’s caught the reference. Finally, he thinks as his pulse thrums through him with intense satisfaction: a use for having to spend hours inside a stuffy theatre box with an aunt that always smelled too strongly of peppermint oil.

A moment later and Rebecca’s spring-loaded, shoving him aside to make her escape. Just before she melts back into the throng of partygoers, though, she turns, left hand curling around the edge of the wooden partition, ring glinting red beneath the disco lights; the only time all night she’s managed not making it look embarrassingly staged.

“In your dreams,” she tells him, deadly serious, then hikes up her voluminous skirts and stomps off in flurry of frilly white lace and bouncing black-brown synthetic curls.