Sweet Valley Sophomores | 7: One on One

[luxken27]

Title: One on One
Fandom: Sweet Valley High
Universe: Pre-canon (sophomore year)
Genre: Romance
Rating: T
Word Count: 3,302
Summary: There’s nothing quite as dangerous as a bored Lila Fowler.

Links: DW | FF.net | AO3

Written for the "blue lagoon" prompt on my 2016 Summer Mini Challenge table.

Yeah, let's do this: let's explore that little pre-canon fling Bruce and Lila had before the classic SVH series started.

This was not the story I intended to write, but when you have as little writing mojo as I do these days, you just go with it :P Actually, it turned out better than I expected, because what I was trying to write was their breakup scene. Instead, I more or less write exactly the opposite. Um, yay for muses?

Lila is feeling lonely and bored because she's all alone. Her friends are either working or vacationing with their families, he father is on yet another business trip, and even the servants are on vacation, so she has little to do but wile away her time. The only major plan she has for the summer is a late trip to Monaco with her father (because of course the Fowlers vacation in Europe like its not big thing).

She decides to work on her tan, and all is going according to plan until Bruce takes it upon himself to show up and start antagonizing her. It takes her a bit longer than is perhaps usual for her to catch on to what he's really doing - which is coming on to her - but she refuses to let him have the upper hand, and in the end, she successfully regains control of the situation.

I was very much going with a "little boys tease the little girls they have crushes on" theme here. Bruce ostensibly shows up to challenge Lila to a rematch of their tennis match from the previous oneshot, but what he really wants to do is show off for her. If he impresses her or annoys her, he considers it a net win - what he ultimately wants is her attention. That's why he planned for things a little better this time. Even if they did have their rematch, on his tennis court, he was prepared for another sojourn in a pool, too.

It all works out to his advantage, though, when he finds her in her pool. Now he can preen for her without the pretext of taking it to the tennis court. It does make him mad when she refuses to compliment him, and they end up exchanging their usual quips and insults, but in the end, he certainly gets her attention.

Lila knows the game he's playing, and she willingly plays along, though she is curious as to why he's suddenly all up in her business. She doesn't buy his rematch excuse (not with his competitive nature OR his ego) or his blase phrases about boredom (way too much of a line), but its not until he's kissing her that she gets it. Now its a question of whether or not his interest in her is genuine or if he's testing her or planning to use her and dump her. Either way, he's the one who's shown his cards, so she has the chance to take the upper hand in the situation, even as he's rather aggressively feeling her up in the water.

I tried to tread lightly here, balancing Bruce's well-known wandering hands with Lila's traumatic experience with John Pfeifer later in the series. (I mean, once you read that, you can't unread it, know what I mean?) It's all about the lustful physical attraction between these two, as well as the power dynamic. Bruce is used to getting what he wants, but he knows he can't push Lila around like he can most of the other girls in his life. She is his equal, in pretty much every social measure, and I think that adds to her appeal for him. She is the ultimate challenge for him, up until this point.

Yet, somehow things go badly. Maybe they realize they aren't ready for something as heavy as a full-flung relationship. Maybe they realize neither one of them is really all that mature yet, even though they act otherwise. Maybe their pride ultimately gets in the way. I haven't yet decided what it was that broke them up, even though the classic factors of being family and business rivals is all there. It's mentioned quite a few times that Bruce's mother especially dislikes Lila, for whatever reason. And I'm fairly sure that when they do get together in SVU at least one of them is disowned by their families because of their involvement.

But for now, it's fun to let them push each other, and fight their mutual attraction. I have a few more ideas in mind for them; we'll see which ones come to fruition first.

Though this is meant to follow the events of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, I am not necessarily writing or posting these in chronological order. I'll have to order them or do a timeline once everything's finished, but for the purposes of the SVS collection, they're being posted in the order they are written.

The title of this story comes from the Hall & Oates song "One on One":

"" (Watch on YouTube)

It was actually their semi-sarcastic "Rich Girl" that was spinning in the background for this fic, but I thought "One on One" fit better with the finished story =)