Refracted

Flustering a Tsundere Werewolf- Part One

Listener Profile:

Name: Angeline Laurens
Sex: yes please *cackles*
Pronouns: she/ her
Hair: thick, coarse, reddish brown and FLUFFY, below shoulders
Eyes: pale blue-green
Skin: ruddy, light tan
Stature: short and chubby
Personality: confident to cover up intense insecurities, bold, no filter, cutesy, clever, flirty but dies when someone flirts back
Extra: partially deaf, uses ASL to communicate even though she has hearing aids when she wants to annoy someone, works at Chick-fil-A

Angeline got her stuff situated on the tiny, wobbly table in front of the mall's only Tumbleweed, her favorite restaurant. She ran her fingers over the table's rough, crosshatched metal surface. The feel of it calmed her nerves amid the bustle of the crowd.
At least until a hand hit the table, rattling her belongings.
Angeline started and looked up, meeting the eyes of a ruggedly handsome, dark haired man. He wore an unzipped black hoodie with the words "Shaw Security" on it over a grey tank top, and his dark hair was long enough to stick up in cute swoops but short enough that it still looked somewhat groomed. He looked like someone you'd find in a mafia fanfiction, and Angeline was here for it. She gave him her best smile, but it quickly faded. The stranger didn't look happy.
His dark expression probably should have scared her, but her oddball brain found it rather attractive, self-preservation notwithstanding. He opened his mouth and growled something, looking like he wanted to throttle her. She wouldn't complain.
Angeline's eyebrows met at the aggressive tone, but the words caught somewhere between her ear and her brain and blurred into something unrecognizable.
She held up a finger, signaling one sec. She reached up to turn on her hearing aids, noticing how the man's eyes followed her hand as she turned the dial above the ridge of her ear up until the bustle of the mall filled her ears.
"Sorry, I'm partially deaf. What did you say?" she smiled, albeit somewhat nervously.
"Why are you following me?" repeated the man. The intonation matched his previous sentence, so she knew he was repeating himself.
But... following him? She was not! She told him as much. "Why do you think I'm following you?"
He scoffed, looking unconvinced. "Because you're everywhere I am, dumbass."
Okay, that was uncalled for. She struggled for words, slightly frazzled because of how unfairly attractive he was even while insulting her. "I-"
"What, did you think I wouldn't notice? I have eyes," he accused.
Angeline was baffled, but she slightly enjoyed the drama of it all. "Why would I be following you?" she asked, one eyebrow raised and a bemused smile on her mouth.
The man looked even more annoyed. "Well if I knew why you might be following me, I wouldn't have asked. And that question wasn't rhetorical. What. Do you want."
"I... I don't want anything," she said, a stubborn little smile still on her face. "I'm just here for lunch."
"Oh, so we just happened to keep ending up in the same places," he scoffed. "Convenient."
Angeline raised her eyebrows, the grin spreading in full force. "Oh? Convenient, you say?"
"I meant the explanation is convenient, not the experience, you little snot."
She couldn't resist a little snicker. "Uh huh. Totally," she teased. "Why would someone want to follow you, anyway?"
"Well, it's none of your damn business why someone might follow me around," he said. "Wouldn't you like to know."
She couldn't resist. "Weatherboy," she muttered, but it was overshadowed by the man grumbling, "if you don't already."
"Well if I knew why someone might be following you, I wouldn't have asked," she matched his previous tone with a mischievous grin to show that it was in good humor.
The tall man laughed harshly. "Oh, so we've got a comedian over here." Well, now he just sounded like the bad cop in a detective movie. "Look. If it was once, that's coincidence. Twice, alright, whatever, apparently we live in the same area. Three times? I don't buy it."
As he finished his little speech, he leaned forward, giving her a rather nice view of his pectorals.
"Well, hang on, I was here first," Angeline claimed, resting a fist on her hip playfully.
"It doesn't matter which of us got here first each of the times; we were both there. Clearly, you're following me." He seemed really annoyed. It was honestly hot.
"Or, maybe you were following me," she suggested casually.
"I was not following you. Why would I follow you?" he demanded.
Angeline gave him a cheeky side-smile. "Wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy?" She grinned.
The stranger looked about to implode. "Oh- wouldn't I like to-" he cut off with an uncanny growl.
Angeline doubled over giggling. Mafia Dude gave her a look that could have withered flowers.
"I don't know what you're trying to do here, but I'm gonna find out."
"How's that?" she inquired.
"By keeping an eye on you," he retorted.
"Huh." She chewed on that, thinking it though, before offering Mafia Dude a friendly grin. "Wanna have lunch with me?"
That clearly wasn't what he was expecting to hear. "Excuse me?"
"Do you want to have lunch with me?" she repeated.
"No- I-I don't want to-"
"You're here for lunch, aren't you?" she talked right over his angry sputters.
It took him a second to speak. "Well, yes, I-I'm here for lunch, what the h*ll do you think they sell here? Why would I have lunch with you?"
Angeline was quite enjoying the red tinge to his face. She couldn't believe she was able to frazzle someone this attractive. How lucky was she? Angeline pushed down her nerves about his nasty reaction and grinned.
"Well, you wanted to keep an eye on me, right?"
"I can keep an eye on you from a distance. Preferably, driving away and hoping you don't follow me," he snapped.
A smirk grew across Angeline's face. "Scared you might like it?" she challenged.
Mafia Dude scoffed. "You know what? Fine. I will have lunch with you, because I want to figure out what the fvck you're up to."
Angeline beamed. "Did you just ask me out?" she asked slyly.
The man nearly combusted, if his bugged-out eyes were any indication. "Ask you? You wish. You just asked me, and I said yes. That's as good as you're gonna get. Now- go up and order, dumbass," he ordered.
Angeline flounced off happily, turning back once to shoot Mafia Dude a wink that- success!- seemed to ruffle his neat feathers. At the counter, she ordered a grilled cheese and a small Diet Coke, stood in the line for a nerve-racking few minutes, and finally went up to the counter to get her food. The teenage girl at the counter barely looked up from her phone to hand Angeline her bag, which caused her to nearly drop it on the floor.
She just took it in stride and brought her food back to her table, where Mafia Dude had dragged up a second chair and sat down.
"Hey! I'm back," she announced.
He just looked at her. That intense stare was quite unnerving, really.
"So," he finally said, "care to admit it?"
"Admit what?" she responded, smirking.
"That you've been following me." His tone was annoyed, but it was quickly becoming less intimidating and more adorable.
"I still think you've been following me," she said, just because she felt like watching him steam.
His reaction was amazing. He actually growled, the sound low and full of warning.
"I have not been following you. That's bullsh!t. Stop saying that trying to get a rise out of me."
Angeline giggled. "Why stop if it's so much fun?"
A sullen silence from the man followed, in which Angeline resisted the urge to fiddle with her food.
"I'm really supposed to believe that we just keep ending up near each other?" the man challenged.
"Would you believe me if I said it was fate?" she flirted back.
He snorted. "There's no such thing as fate. There's probability, which people ascribe fake meaning to, so that they can feel better, or safer, or less like sh!t."
"Ooh, we got a cynic, have we," Angeline murmured, smiling.
"Ugh, whatever. If you're not following me, then why the h3ll would you ask to have lunch with me?" he demanded.
Angeline grinned in a way that conveyed her smug delight at the convenient question. "Because you are the most attractive person I've ever seen in my life," she said honestly.
This seemed to cause a glitch in the man. He nearly did a spit take. "W-what?"
"Is that offensive?" she asked, suddenly nervous.
"Well, no, I- I mean, that's-" he broke off with a sigh. "Thank you. But don't think that compliments are gonna make me trust you. I'm not that easy."
This time, his grumpy face lost any intimidation factor it might have had once. Angeline grinned in reply.
"Easy on the eyes," she quipped, much to his chagrin.
He growled again. "I'm not easy at all. Get your head out of the gutter."
"Aw, are you getting flustered?" she asked, delighted with the red on his cheeks.
"I am not getting flustered. And you are not the one in control of this conversation," he insisted, jabbing a menacing finger at her.
"Ooh, you like being in control, do you?" she teased.
She expected him to freeze, for red to flood his cheeks, and for him to start sputtering. What she didn't expect was for him to chuckle.
"Yes. I do like being in control. You're not gonna fluster me with that one." He leaned over the table, and Angeline's eyes widened slightly.
She remembered to keep a confident smile on her face just as she felt it flicker.
She realized she'd let silence hang over the table for a beat too long when Mafia Dude said, "What's your name." It wasn't a question; it was a demand. And he'd said it as if he resented asking.
"What's yours?" she replied with a grin.
He scoffed. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," he dared.
She shrugged, adjusting her thighs on the chair. "Okay, I'm Angeline. Now your turn."
The man sighed. "David," he finally said.
Angeline beamed and did a little dance in her seat. She didn't care that David was staring at her, or that her food was getting cold. This was progress, and the day she hid her feelings or dampened the way she acted would be the day dementors took over Dahlia.
"I'd say nice to meet you, but that remains to be seen."
Angeline nodded, saying, "Oh, there's a lot of me you haven't seen."
He growled again over her giggle, looking around furtively like he was worried someone would overhear and ruin his serious tough guy image.
"Would you stop saying stuff like that."
"I mean, if you don't want me to, I'll stop."
"No, it's not- that. We're in public, and I don't even know you," David said.
"Well, I can change that," Angel said cheerfully.
"Well, who said I wanted to get to know you?" he retorted.
"You did," she quipped. "You were all like, "i'M gOiNg To FiNd OuT eVeRyThInG aBoUt YoU.""
"I did not!" was David's oh-so-composed comeback. "I said I wanted to know what you were up to. There's a difference. For all I know, this is some plan of yours. And if it is, I'm going to find out." He glared across the table.
Angeline held up her hands in mock supplication. "I swear, I'm innocent!" she claimed.
David laughed meanly. "I've known you for all of five minutes, and even I can tell: you are far from innocent."
"And? What's it to ya?" she retorted playfully.
"Well, I didn't say that was a bad thing. Under the right circumstances, that's can be a very good thing."
Angeline stared, wondering if she'd just heard what she thought she'd heard. Her lips twitched.
"But I don't need to be putting any more ideas in your head," he said. "You seem to make plenty of them all on your own."
"I'd say I'm not the only one with some nasty stuff in my...head," she drawled, sweeping her eyes toward where she suspected the "head" in question to be. She thought that one was pretty clever.
David choked. "Stop saying things like that!"
Angeline cackled.
"God, you're forward. This is not helping your case that all of this was some kind of coincidence, ya know. Unless you flirt like this with everyone you randomly run into," he scoffed.
She hummed smugly. "Only the hot ones," she muttered, sneaking a glance at David to see his reaction.
He choked, emitting a sound close to that of a verbal keysmash. "Only the hot- Oh- Jesus Christ, eat your food. Maybe you won't talk if your mouth is full. And do not take that the way I know you were thinking of, you perv," he snapped as Angeline opened her mouth with a grin. She closed it, fighting laughter.
"Fvckin' hell," he muttered.
She shot him a smug grin.
"You have no shame, you know that?" he said as she waved cheerfully to a group of scandalized eavesdroppers a table down.
She knew. She flashed him a grin. On a whim, she blew him a kiss, and was rewarded when his face turned bright red.
"Oh, very funny." He turned away, muttering, "fvck" into his elbow.

Author's Note: I stopped here because it's pretty much the halfway point of the video. Part two forming soon, and all requests are welcome!