How To Succeed in Office Relationships Without Really Trying
CW: Possessiveness, kinda toxic relationship, sexism.
Tags: Fluff, established relationship, one-shot, not canon, 1960-something, yandere tendencies if you squint, friends with benefits to lovers
Fandom: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Pairings: Bud Frump x reader, Smitty x reader, Hedy LaRue x reader
Summary: How they are in a relationship with you, their co-worker.
These three characters are my favorite to write for and I get so excited when I’m given an idea that has to do with them. I came up with this idea myself but if you want to request an imagine or a fully fledged fic, there’s a link to a google form that you can fill out!Â
In the office and during work hours, Bud tends to act as though you don’t exist. He doesn’t mean to, he just doesn’t like to show vulnerability around his co-workers! So he acts like you’re just some other employee at the office.
Heaven forbid, if someone were to flirt with you or get close to you… Bud would be furious! How dare someone touch his property. He would immediately hatch a scheme to get them fired and blacklisted all across New York by using his uncle’s connections as CEO.Â
Although he’d never let anyone know you were dating, after that little incident, it was understood that you were off limits.
Bud is against PDA unless he is the one to initiate, which is typically a way to show you off.Â
If you are the one to initiate PDA (kisses on cheeks, holding hands, hugs, etc.) he will be hesitant… until you flash him a pleading look, which causes him to fold immediately.
During your shared coffee break, he’ll pour you a cup before he pours his own. He knows exactly how you like your coffee too, you told him on your first date and he never forgot.
Your relationship is (sort of) secret because you’re his secretary. There’s a company policy that doesn’t allow employees to date their superiors so Bud even has to hide it from his family to stop his uncle from finding out. Mr. Biggley would fire him without a second thought if his wife wasn’t Bud’s aunt.
This is making him miserable because he usually tells his mother everything, so hiding it from her is awful. But he doesn’t want to risk you getting fired!
His mother does eventually find out when she catches him on the telephone with you. But she promises not to tell anyone.
Smitty loves to come find you while you’re working, when she has free time, that is.
She’ll come up behind you and lean on you, exhausted and mumbling about how stupid her boss is. “Who doesn’t know how to spell sincerely?”
Hopefully no one flirts with you, because Smitty has an army of work friends with an arsenal of blackmail on everyone in the office that can and will be released on whoever tries to come on to you. She just has to say the word.
As for PDA, she isn’t big on hugs or kisses already but in public, it’s increased tenfold.
She’s known as this practical, tough woman and she doesn’t want people to stop taking her seriously. So if you try to hold her hand or hug her, she does not reciprocate. She won’t make you stop, though.Â
Before you start dating and Smitty’s best friend, Rosemary, finds out about her crush on you, she tries to give her a makeover to make you fall in love with her, but it actually just made her look like Hedy, the “office siren”.
You see Smitty that day, after she gets the makeover, and you act like Fiyero with Elphaba in Wicked when she gets a makeover from Glinda. “You’ve been Hedy-fied.”Â
Luckily you didn’t care about her looks.
Hedy is like if PDA was a person so the second you start dating officially, she is all over you, even during work.Â
“Hedy, I have to go to a meeting.” “Am I invited?” “No.”
If anyone ever flirts with you, Hedy is surprisingly secure enough in your relationship to let you handle it. Although, typically no one does because she is literally always right beside you, cuddling you or hugging you from behind.
Hedy has a lot of exes in the office. One of which is literally the CEO, Mr. Biggley. How he managed to pull her, you’ll never know. But he got her the job that led to you meeting her so you’re weirdly thankful towards him.Â
One of her other exes is Mr. Wally Womper, who she was going to marry until he dumped her for wanting to keep her job instead of becoming a housewife.
At home, Hedy doesn’t have to “show off” as much so she’ll have a completely different look about her because there’s no one to impress. She already bagged you and you don’t care how she looks (which she is absolutely bewildered by at first) so she wears pretty casual clothes, usually a nightgown or a robe.
She has a basset hound named Coco Chanel who is also absolutely IN LOVE with you. You were surprised by this because she struck you as a poodle kinda girl. The first time you spent the night at her house, you woke up with a basset staring at you while holding a food bowl in its mouth. Obviously you woke up Hedy and she gleefully told you all about her angel baby as she fed you both breakfast.Â
Coco didn’t like any of Hedy’s previous partners and howled at them for 10 straight minutes whenever they would come over. This made Hedy a little reluctant to introduce you two, but she couldn't find a dogsitter so Coco was put in the guest room until she broke out during the night.
You two started dating when you asked her to accompany her to the company banquet after she and Mr. Womper broke up. You had been waiting for her to finally be single since she usually just jumped from one partner to the next. She originally turned you down, deciding to be single for a while, even though she liked you.Â
You two ended up drunk and kissing in Mr Biggley’s office (she still had a key from when they were dating). But the next day, she still didn’t want to date and you two just decided to be friends.
After about a year of will-they-won’t-they, she finally asked you out on a date, to which you happily agreed.