#oc otp: fight fight - kiss kiss - gtfo - now let's have kids

[careless-with-your-heart]

Seeing Red 🍸😡🧟💋

This fits perfectly for @ockissweek! So excited! Enjoy this one-shot for #ockiss24.

Seeing Red: A Blaine DeBeers x OC KissFic One-Shot

You can’t kiss her.

The thought practically eats Blaine alive—an oxymoron if he’s ever heard one.

It’s only been a week since Catherine blew in with the rain, and already she’s making herself useful. Not just in his fantasies, though there is that, but in cold, hard earnings. And for that—and all the other, carnal reasons that keep him up at night—Blaine wants to kiss Catherine-No-Middle-Name-Cohen full on her plush, tempting mouth.

“Why do you look so self-satisfied?”

Don E’s voice cuts through Blaine’s locked-eyes daydreaming, and over the glow of his laptop screen, Blaine raises a brow at his second-in-command as Don E glides into the back office of The Post, leaving the door yawning wide open behind him.

“I always look self-satisfied. I am a man intent on nothing else but satisfying himself.” To prove the point, Blaine lifts the half-full martini glass that rests on his desk and salutes the small, bald man standing in front of him before slugging down the remainder of the drink.

“Yeah, sure. But, like, right now, you just had this look on your face. Like, what’s the expression? The cat that ate the canary?”

“You got it switched, brother. The canary is the cat—Kitty, that is.”

Don E. smirks as he slides into the chair in front of Blaine’s desk. “You son of a bitch! You nailed her. Noice. Fast work. She seems a little damaged, but in that way you like. I dig it.” He leans forward conspiratorially. “Should I arrange for some flowers? A nice bottle of vino for the lady? A link to my YouTube channel?”

Blaine blanches. “Don’t be crass. I didn’t nail her. And no one watches your YouTube channel.”

It’s Don. E’s turn to protest. “Hey! I’ll have you know that my Redecorating Your Living Room When You’re No Longer Living series was very popular. Dozens of views. And if the Lady Catherine is now on Team Z, she might need some basic how-to on how to do the undead thing.”

“Mmm-hmm. Congrats on the views, champ, but she’s still human. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand—our little stray cat has, in the past week, bumped nightly bar receipts up by thirty percent. And she breezed in here this morning with a full-on spreadsheet breaking down our liquor cost, in order of highest to lowest margins, and she’s gone to meet in person with two distributors who might cut those costs if we switch suppliers.”

Don E’s eyes widen. “Damn. Sorry bro. I mistook your money boner for a lady-inspired one. That’s some valid dreamy-eyed shit. She’s way nice, too. Did you know that Darcy loves her? Those two and Liv and Peyton, there’s a whole Clueless thing going on that is very, very heartwarming.”

“Why are you in my office, exactly?” Blaine says, closing down his laptop.

“Oh! Yes. Two items of business. One, remember that you asked Darcy to come in today to look over the delivery system and see if she can take the whole ordering process online.”

Blaine has forgotten—but now he recalls, and he nods agreeably. “That’s great. Crypto, right? Less physical cash changing hands means less chance of an extra hand in the honeypot.”

Don E rocks his chair back up on two legs, bracing his interlaced fingers behind his head. “Yeah, that’s the business part deux. We have a little prrrrrroblemo down in distribution that I wanted to talk to you about.” He grimaces slightly. “Caught one of the new delivery guys sampling the goods.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

What a way to kill the high of the morning’s financial gain.

“Nope. Hank.”

Blaine presses his lips together. “You vouched for him, Don.”

The younger man winces. “I know, bro. I was trying to help him out. He used to be my barista before, you know”—Don E’s tongue lolls out and he raises his arms in a caricature of Night of the Living Dead. Off of Blaine’s flat look, he drops his hands to his lap. “I came to you as soon as I knew. I’ll take care of it. I just didn’t want my partner out of the loop.”

“And now you want to bring Darcy in to automate the ordering? When your boy is stealing from me?” There’s no way for him to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“She’s my wife, Blaine.”

His mood souring, Blaine shrugs. “I’m not catching your point.”

“I love her. She loves me. You don’t profess your love and then ask someone to share the rest of your life unless there’s trust, right?”

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” Blaine quotes flatly.

Don E’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, yeah. This from the guy who claims he doesn’t have it bad for the new livestock in town.”

Before Blaine can protest again, Don E puts up a hand to stop his reply. “You can say it’s money all you want, but I see the way you look at her, and all the other signs. If you’re not careful, you’ll fall, too. The indestructible Blaine DeBeers.”

The word isn’t quite right. Blaine knows a few other descriptors that are apt. Ones that were drilled into him young, and often.

Unlovable

Inadequate

Worthless

Blaine lifts his chin, smirking past the intrusive thoughts. “Other signs?”

“You’re dressing her up like your personal doll, Blaine. You’ve never done that with any of the back-room girls. And, last night, your pocket square matched her dress. “

Blaine remains silent, thoughtful.

Don E presses on. “You’ve given her every night shift this week—and, I might add, you’ve come in an hour early yourself every one of those nights. To throw some wisdom from your man Willie Shakes back at you, lovers ever run before the clock, bro."

Blaine rolls his eyes at Don E. "Don't save the date, my friend."

"See? Interested but cynical. Yearning for love but settling for cheap interludes. Face it, you have commitment issues."

"I suppose you have a YouTube video for that?"

"Your sarcasm is a defense mechanism. Look at the facts. My dude, you barely let your shoes get walked in before you toss them."

"It's been my experience that a quality woman hates scuffed soles," Blaine shoots back, toying with the edge of the empty martini glass on his desk. 

"Soles or souls? Fifty-fifty chance you fail there, boss."

Blaine laughs and puts a hand over his chest, bending double in his chair as he pretends to clutch his heart. “Damn! Ouch.” Then, sitting up, still grinning, Blaine says, “I admit that our newest house human is aesthetically pleasing. And she knows how to make money. But if you think a little ‘ol steak dinner on a pair of nice stems is going to tempt me into forever, brother, you don’t know me at all.”

“I do. And you know me. And I love Darcy. So trust her because you trust me.”

Blaine nods. “Fair enough.” But he’s still more than a little annoyed. Not just by Don E’s too-keen observations about how he was beginning to feel about Kitty, but by the stress fractures he saw forming in his usually well-run businesses. The bartender that had just been caught pouring heavy for his friends last week. The delivery guy skimming brains. What did a dishonest businessman have to do to get good help in this town?

A sudden knock on the doorframe of the office yanks the attention of both men to the entryway.

Kitty stands there—and Blaine’s breath catches.

Don E swivels back around to face him, eyes wide. How long has she been standing there? he mouths.

Blaine ignores the question, but the possibility that she’d just heard their conversation makes his stomach twist. Instead of panicking outwardly, he opts for what gets him out of most situations—cocky, surface bravado, even if he’s a nervous wreck on the inside.

“Meals on Heels! Just the gal I was singing the praises of. How’d it go with the distributors?”

She shoots him an unreadable look as she makes her—brisk—way to his desk. “Really well. Two proposals, both great offers. Twenty or twenty-five percent off of current rates for your regular rotation stock. Higher discount wants a four-year contract, though.”

Don E seems to relax some.

Blaine smiles broadly. “Wow. Not bad, dollface. Not bad at all.”

“Not bad for cattle, isn’t that what you mean?” There’s a clipboard in her hand, and she slams it down on top of his closed laptop. “It’s your choice on which new supplier to go with—but maybe avoid the four-year contract if you’re commitment-shy.”

Both men gape at her.

"Anyway, guess this shows I'm good for more than a source of protein. I'll be out in the bar, trying to figure out what the hell you two are good for."

Then, she spins and marches out of his office.

Fuck.

Blaine rises from his office chair, shaking his head as he starts to follow her out onto the main bar floor. “Kitty, hold up. I didn’t mean…”

The office door slams in his face.

As Blaine goes stock-still in stunned silence, Don’s chair scrapes back as he stands. “Don’t chase her, dude. Let her go.”

Blaine rounds on him, snarling. “Shut up, Don E! I don’t need any more of your sage advice.”

But the other man is probably right. It won’t do anything except make things worse if he chases Kitty down while she’s angry. So Blaine steps back. It takes every ounce of willpower he’s able to scrape together, and probably some borrowed from whatever saint he last dined on to boot, but he does it. He leaves the door closed and paces back to his desk instead of storming out to ask her to forgive him—and to ask her who the fuck she thinks she is, slamming his own office door in his face.

“So, I’m going to retire Hank now, if that’s cool…” Don E says, shuffling in place. “Darcy should be here any minute.”

Maybe it’s his simmering annoyance at the employee messes, or the sudden, queasy unease he feels over Kitty overhearing what he’d said to his second-in-command. But whatever the cause, Blaine’s temples begin to throb, and anger suddenly swells in his chest. He’d been happy five minutes ago, head full of rainbows and unicorns and cotton-candy thoughts about the woman who’d just bitten his head off. She shouldn’t be so fucking sensitive. In fact, she should be grateful to him. He’d given her a job with very few questions asked.

Outside in the main bar, Blaine hears the sound of a door slamming. Then, muffled curses. She’s out there throwing a fit—and it makes his anger spike higher. It makes the part of him that is always simmering, spoiling for a fight, begin to boil. He pushes off of his desk, feeling the familiar red haze as the pressure of it begins to make his eyes burn.

“Dude?” Don E’s words after are a muffled mess of noise—nothing that will stop Blaine as he lets the anger rise, relishes it, embraces it as it climbs hotly through the stark, popped veins of his neck and into his head, taking over.

He is the boss here. Kitty works for him. And he’s going to show her just how much trouble her bratty little attitude has gotten her into.

Blaine doesn’t have to take his clash out to the bar. As soon as he flings open the door to his office, she’s there—so close, in fact, that he doesn’t even see her before they collide. But he hears her small, startled cry of surprise, and her softness registers against the lean, hard planes of him, and his raged-out brain indexes through a dozen reasons she’s coming back; and it settles hotly, and nearly instantly, on one reason in particular.

She’s come to insult him some more.

Unlovable

Inadequate

Worthless

And that isn’t fair, or accurate, or even related enough to be applied, but the anger doesn’t care. It siphons all the fuel it needs from the dark corners of his heart and grows, and grows…

I’ll show you exactly what I’m good for…

Blaine’s pissed enough that he rolls with the knee-jerk, Cro-Magnon urge that seizes him, gives in to the impulse, and throws out all care for the notion of what is prudent or professional or even safe—and he takes what he wants. What he’s wanted since that stormy Friday night when the city had delivered this lithe, magnetic mystery woman to his doorstep.

Kitty tries to pull back, but he reacts so quickly that she doesn’t stand a chance. He grips both of her upper arms, hauls her up, and through the blinding crest of the red haze, feeling as though his head might burst if he doesn’t, Blaine kisses her. He puts into the kiss all of the frustration he feels that has nothing at all to do with Kitty, and all of the lust that absolutely does. Just as he ducks toward her, he closes his eyes, peripherally afraid he’ll startle her with the blood-red in them.

Soft. You’re going soft, McDonough.

And that thought fans the flames of his fury higher, ensuring that the kiss is not soft. His lashes sweep her cheeks as his mouth attacks hers, and he lifts one hand from her arm to stab his fingers through her hair and fist the heavy, silky tresses to hold her still for his onslaught.

She stiffens at first. Blaine can only guess it’s in shock, but he hopes there’s a little anger of her own in the reflex. Something about his driving rage craves an answering anger in her. Maybe he wants Kitty mad to make it feel a little less like he’s the villain here. Predator, prey, hell, he isn’t sure which of them is which, anyway. Once he drops his other hand to haul her against him at the waist, she goes pliant against him, and Blaine wastes no time parting her teeth with his tongue, licking into her, withdrawing to bite and suck at her lower lip before pressing back in to steal the surprised gasp that escapes her when the last nip draws the barest taste of copper.

The blood excites him. It’s primal and elemental, and he doesn’t care if she bites him back. In fact, he’d go just about crazy if she did. He wants her to, wants to feel the sting of her canines in his lower lip, at the hollow of his neck, sinking into the meat of his shoulder through his shirt as he’s tearing off her panties. He wants a hundred little half-moon bruises left scattered over his body, despite the fact that he knows they will heal too quickly to be morning-after souvenirs.

She’s kissing him back now, pulling him urgently to her by the collar. It’s satisfying to feel that desperation, to know that he can make her so needy so fast. He feels a button on his shirt give way, feels her fingers slip over his throat, and he swallows an endless stream of her breathy moans as he turns the two of them and presses her to the doorframe, jamming a knee between her legs and leaving her lips to rake his front teeth down her neck. If the skin breaks, he’ll take it as sign from the universe that he’s meant to keep this enigma. And fuck Don E’s little H.P. Lovecrafting videos, Blaine will teach her everything she needs to know to become the undead queen of his dreams, and they can rule the gloomy, overprivileged burgs of Seattle together.

Forever, he thinks. A bride for Frankenstein’s monster.

It’s too close to sentiment for Blaine, too close to Don E’s cupid’s-arrow insights, and so Blaine simply pushes aside everything but the taste and scent and feel of Kitty against him. Every breath he draws is a tempest, his chest rising and falling with the fury of a Nor’easter. The veins on his neck stand out, dark and pronounced, as if they are bracing against the surge of anger pulsing through him. The hand he holds her close with trembles with barely contained rage, and in her hair, his fingers are still curled into a fist so tight that the knuckles whiten, nails dug into the palm, the pain a mere whisper against the roar of his baser emotions.

She’s practically climbing him, riding his thigh, a leg wrapping around his hip, the other en pointe like a ballerina to even out their heights, and he slams her back against the doorjamb with little regard for gentleness. This kiss edges on erupting into violence at any moment. It’s the rage, he knows, full-on zombie mode, but all he can think of is how he wants her begging underneath him—for pardon or pleasure, it makes no difference to him. He just wants her to submit. He just wants to conquer her.

Blaine clenches his fist against her scalp again, too tightly, and she whimpers into his open mouth.

“Blaine.”

The kiss has gone on for an eternity, or maybe it’s only been a handful of seconds. Blaine falters when the red haze begins to recede, when he registers that the pliant, pronounced curve at her waist is lower than he expects, and when he realizes that he has forced Kitty to a tiptoe with his hold in her hair.

Tiptoe?

And then, the voice saying his name…is not the husky, velvet timbre that he was listening for. Raspy, yes, the lilt of a woman well-kissed, but higher in octave. And Kitty wouldn’t need to stand on tiptoe to make their heights align. She’s only about an inch or two shorter than he is.

Blaine’s eyes fly open as he pulls away.

Staring up at him, eyes wide and pupils blown, lips bite-swollen and red, cheeks so flushed that her pale skin seems almost sunburned, is Darcy.

“Oops,” Blaine says dumbly, chest still heaving. “Wrong brat.”

“Dude. What the fuck.”

Blaine’s head swings toward Don. E, who stands facing them, frozen. His face oscillates between shock and disbelief.

Mortification swamps him, the last of the rage receding. Blaine eases the petite woman down from his thigh until her feet hit the floor, and then he lets go of the handful of Darcy’s hair that he’s still clutching, smoothing it with a few awkward pats as she sways on her feet and smiles dazedly. He takes a slow step back.

“I, uh—”

The frozen silence is broken by Kitty’s astonished voice from the bar.

“What the hell is going on?”

Blaine’s head whips to the right, where he sees her at the closest end of the bar, her eyes twice as wide as Don’s, a bottle held aloft.

Fuck. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit.

Blaine clears his throat, straightens his suit jacket, and waves a dismissive hand at her. He tries his damnedest to put a firmness in his voice that he absolutely doesn’t feel. “Nothing to see here. Just, uh, new employee appreciation.” He turns back to Darcy, who has sagged back against the door, still looking as though she’s been hit by some unexpected natural disaster. He picks up her hand and pumps it overzealously. “Welcome to the team.”

Darcy swoons. Don E is there to catch her, and as he carries his wife to a nearby table in the bar area, Blaine takes the chance to slip backward into his office, close the door, and lock it.

As Blaine sinks down into his desk chair, a last quote comes to him—appropriate to his current faux pas. He says it to the empty room, a mirthless chuckle rolling up as he buries his head in his hands.

“Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.”

Blaine wonders how he’s ever going to show his face in his own bar again.

Find me at AO3 for more Blaine x Kitty fun in the motherfic of this one-shot (Lay You in the Ground) Here. Thank you for reading! <3