SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

[goneawaymod]

SHEET CAKE MEETUP

“Who the fuck is Linda?”

The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.

A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.

However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.

“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”

(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)

Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).

There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).

“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”

*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

"I'm real sorry, ma'm," Saturday says, hunching her shoulders to sell her humble voice. "You're right, I wasn't thinkin', and it was disrespectful - "

"Exactly!" the woman continues, smug triumph in her face. "I've already complained several times about this crop of new hires. You're all far too ungrateful for the opportunity Jorgmundr's given you, when they could have left you to die in the wilds - "

Saturday's fingers twitch, a little. Her smile is melting into something more like a grimace. "Like I said, I'm sorry - "

"Hmph! I've been watching you waste food for the last half an hour, taking bits and throwing it away like we're made of money. And spilling this delicious cider Jorgmundr's provided, when they've tried so hard to make you all feel welcome in this difficult time."

The woman is enjoying this, her face flush with righteous pleasure. Saturday's taken the wrong approach, she realizes. The more she shows throat to this woman, the more she'll keep going, pushing. Bullies are like that, and Saturday recites to herself everything she'd told Guts about why now isn't the time, why giving Jorg an example to make would be counter productive, and it's better to just let them have it for now.

The situation is salvageable. There are worse things to sacrifice than dignity.

The woman will not shut up.

"Now, I want you to go and get that food you've been throwing away - " And then she lays hands on Saturday, pushing her away from the table. Or intending to, except that suddenly her wrist is crushed in Saturday's grip.

"Do not touch me," she says, very clearly. Her eyes are those of a killer.

[greatlyexaggerated]

The palms of his hands start tingling right about the time he sees Saturday's fingers twitch. And then it happens all too quickly. His mind filling with catastrophic images of imminent discipline and torture - and himself caught up in it, of course - he's immediately caught up in performing damage control.

"Excuse me," Cain declares, as thinks of how to defuse the situation. He needs to start framing this interaction in a different light as soon as possible, laying tracks of revisionist history almost as soon as it's happening.

Cain steps up to the staffer's side, subtly enough that it doesn't look like an intervention, resting his hand on the crook of her elbow in a gentlemanly manner as he tries to extricate Saturday's grip. The staffer startles slightly, but Cain just gives her a reassuring smile. But she's is surprisingly pliable, and Cain has a feeling why when she glances at his chest, and then away again. Probably not used to the attention of men who aren't pencil-necked around here, he thinks disparagingly.

Do not touch me, Saturday had said, and while he's liable to take that under general advisement, he silently pleads with his eyes to let him move her hand, treading a very precarious line between authoritative and masterful.

The handsome man to the rescue, it is.

The woman brings herself up to full indignity. "What on earth was that? I'll have you-"

"Don't mind her at all, she's a little overly-sensitive," he interrupts - as if this is a matter of sensitivity and not aggression - directing a boyish smile with an oh, look at her attitude, and deftly moves on. "She's an elf, you know." As if that explains everything, and he turns fully to her. "I was just about to find one of the cleaners to come over and mop this up, in fact - quite criminal how they're not paying any attention to what's supposed to be their job."

Placing external blame seems like a good place to start, especially since he'd noticed those remarks she'd made earlier about janitorial. She deflates slightly, but still tuts red-faced and glares at Saturday.

"I suppose you could be right. But the wastage is still simply awful!"

The staffer still looks determined to carry on from where she left off, so Cain really plasters it on with a trowel. "I hope you don't think of all the new hires that way. Or at least given the opportunity, I promise I'll change your mind." He inclines his head modestly, seemingly innocently oblivious to his any flirtatious implication. "You seem to be remarkably on top of things - I don't suppose I could trouble you to help show me where to find a janitor around here?"

[wheyoftheadept]

Cain is not a threat. Saturday's fingers are stiff but they move at his urging, and then the woman's attention is off her entirely. Which is the split second of breathing room she needs to regain control of herself. She pulls back, and when Cain excuses her, ducks her head to look humble and hide her

"'M sorry," she says, speaking through clenched teeth but sounding chastened. "Sorry, really sorry - " She needs more space, needs an excuse to break contact - and seizes on one as Cain continues to wave his cloak in front of the bull. "I just - I don’t like to be touched - "

Saturday goes abruptly to one knee and grabs a handful of napkins on the way. Her hands are shaking, and gripping them helps keep her steady.

"Don't worry, I got it - " Apologetic, eager to please, and out of the woman's line of sight. Saturday starts mopping at the spilled juice, rather pointlessly as it's already soaked in, but the action hides her from the woman and lets Cain fill her vision instead, the better to -

- flirt?

Saturday sucks in a breath to hold a sudden, startled laugh, which becomes slightly harder when it works. The woman’s protest dies at Cain’s considerate words and his respectful bow, and Saturday’s respect for this guy grows about three sizes. He’s very good.

"Well - I - I suppose I could go get one, you’re not supposed to leave until the party’s over." She’s fluttering a bit, and Cain presses the advantage while Saturday stays down, playing the anxious penitent. She's better at the role then you'd think; some habits die harder than others.

[greatlyexaggerated]

Cain is concerned at first about Saturday's shaking hands, and is most certainly miffed when he hears her trying not to laugh from her position below them. But it's a good sign that she's coming back to her right senses, whatever on Holy Terra possessed her to do what she did besides.

While part of his mind is focused on watching Saturday shuffling about on the floor mopping up the remnants, he sees the hesitation and goes in for the kill.

"Surely it won't be a problem if I'm with you?" he asks demurely, like he's under the impression that she has the authority of the Lord General himself. "I wouldn't want to make any inconvenience, but it's only polite to escort a lady to her destination."

He lets go of her elbow, but then offers his own with an inviting smile. As distasteful as it is, it's a decent opportunity to learn something. She looks around the room, clearly a little torn about protocol, though Warp knows where she's expecting to find an answer. He can see that it's evidently a struggle of titanic proportions in her mind, but Cain's charm wins out in the end.

"I suppose - it can't do any harm..."

With some hesitance, she puts her hand through the crook of his elbow, seeming to forget almost entirely about Saturday, and he invites her to lead the way with a little dramatic flourish. "I just hope it's not inappropriate to be seen leaving a party early with me," he starts to joke as they walk away. And the staffer - honest to the God-Emperor - giggles. And just as they leave, at a moment of distraction, Cain turns his head to give Saturday a long-suffering look, and silently mouths a choice curse word.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday gives him a truly apologetic look and expansive shrug, all gratitude and apologetic embarrassment. She's still shaken, but he doesn't need to know that. All earlier friction over her ears is completely forgotten.