Chapter Text
“Welcome to the big league kid, I hope it’s nothing like you dreamed of.”
Meryl still had her hand outstretched, ready to shake but the older man before her never took it, just sighed and turned his back as he started walking down the rows of offices along the walls and the open plan workstations in the middle of the office floor.
An annoyed grunt pressed out from her, drowned slightly by the upbeat pop music that was still playing over the office sound system 'a sprinkling of love' by the idol known as Vash the Stampede. She had recently graduated, top of her class in Geotechnical Engineering and landed at the biggest biotech corp in the damn world; Plant-vation and was being treated like a damn intern.
Pressing down her annoyance, Meryl followed the man down the hallway, looking over at the occupied workstations, people set up with two or three monitors, cubicle all bare of any personalization and everyone seeing so focused on their work that it looked like you would have to physically shake someone to get their attention.
“You’ll be under my supervision in the bio sample collection division. The big boss shows up once a month, the next visit is in three days so try to get on your feet as fast as you can.”
“Sir…” damn, the man hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself yet, of course Meryl had researched her job very thoroughly so knew this was Roberto De Niro (she wondered what kind of man would use a famous actor's name?) “Don’t I get any time to settle in? At least let my station set up?”
The man looked over his shoulder at her and gave a rye chuckle “kid, did you miss the ‘no personalization allowed’ in your hiring package? Here at Plant-vation the focus is on the future of supporting biodiversity through technology” Roberto held up air quotes as he repeated the company's mantra that has been drilled into him over the years “the big boss wants that to be everyone’s sole focus while at work.”
Meryl gave a deep sigh, looking down at the small box of items she had bought for her desk “not even my own pen?” She dug out a red ballpoint pen with a little donut charm dangling off the clicker end, there was something written on it in a golden font. She walked right into Roberto who stopped when he saw the pen.
There was a strange, almost mischievous look to Roberto as he grinned seeing the pen “I can’t see the harm in a little thing like that, Already newbie lets get you to work.”
The first three things Meryl noticed about her new work place: the people were utterly terrified of the CEO Mr. Knives, really focused on their work, almost more zombieish than any other place she’s been at and that was probably in part of number three; all day everyday the only thing that played over the speakers was every song ever put out by the Idol “Vash the Stampede.”
It didn’t take long to notice that on her second day, she was actually humming along to the song ‘Black Cat’s Got My Back’ when for the first time someone beside Mr De Niro actually spoke to her.
“Hey… Can you not.” A man with amber eyes and grey hair despite looking only to be in his 30’s asked, no, told her.
Meryl looked at the dead eye’d man who came from two cubicles down and gave a nervous laugh “Oh, sorry about that. I’m Meryl Stryfe, nice to meet you!” She extended a hand to shake with her still unnamed co-worker.
The man blinked for a moment but eventually took her hand and shook it “Livio. Please, I know you just started here but… Even if you like Vash, you’ll get sick of him soon enough, it’s all that ever plays.” His amber eyes sweep over Meryl’s desk and spots the pen “smart move, having to meet Knives so soon after starting here, bringing something to appease him.”
Before she could even ask what the heck he meant by any of that he walked back to his workstation and was back at the grind, eyes glazing over at the reports on his monitors. She looked over to the glass walls of the office where Roberto was, he didn’t seem to notice any interaction and she just signed internally to herself.
‘Well, if he’s a fan of Vash then maybe that can help me get on Mr. Knives good side,’ Meryl thought to herself before trying to finish up her first report to present to the big boss tomorrow. She kept herself from humming as the next song ‘Feathers Like Knives’ started and noticed by how everyone in the office let out a collective groan that the song must have special meaning for the boss, the volume suddenly going up at least five notches.
Today was the big day! Meryl set three alarms to make sure there was no chance of sleeping in (though she never had yet) and took extra time this morning to make sure she was at her most presentable for when she would get to meet the big boss today. She had done her research before applying around and had a good idea of what could capture Mr. Knives attention and had three flash drives and sent a copy of one of her school projects to her work email to ensure she would have it ready to show.
It was ten to 2pm and Meryl felt her anxiousness starting to get to her. She had her work files up but had put her school project in the documents folder, ready to bring up when she got the chance. Roberto was out of his glass office and looking over everyone’s work when Meryl saw a well dressed man with blue hair come out of the elevator and behind him, an ever sharper dressed man with platinum blond hair swept back, sharp black rimmed glasses with a slim profile a beauty mark was visible under his right eye, his suite was silver with blue trim but as the two approached she could see something yellow peaking out of the breast pocket.
The two came up to their row of the office floor, and the blue haired man cleared his throat “Mr. De Niro, let’s hear your department’s update.” The man had the most dire case of resting bitch face that Meryl had ever seen, still better than the look of cold indifference she was getting from Knives.
“Ah yes Mr. Bluesummers, you see…” Everyone in the department was standing to the left of their workstations, allowing their monitors to be seen and ready to answer any questions as Roberto was talking. Her eyes flitted from Roberto and Bluesummers to Knives for a brief moment but was rooted in place when he noticed his cold gaze on her desk.
“You, you’re new.” Knives looked from the desk to Meryl herself, causing her to stiffen under his intense gaze.
“Yes, Sir, Mr. Knives! It’s my third day on the job, thank you so much for this opportunity!
His gaze fell back on her desk, before looking over at the blue haired man who must have been his assistant “Legato, your clipboard.” The blue haired man extended his hand, giving Knives the clipboard with a loose leaf notepad on it. Knives then stepped up to Meryl’s desk, looking over the report she had up before turning to her
“I’ll borrow your pen.” Once again, not asking but stating before he picked up her lucky red pen with the donut charm on it, clicking out the end and from what she could see, just scribbled nonsense on the pad for a moment, clearly feigning interest in the report she had showing before he stood up straight, clicked the pen closed and put it in his breast pocket with whatever it was he already had in there.
A sound died on her tongue as she was about to say something about that being her pen before everyone aside from Knives gave her a warning look. “All good then, keep it up.” He said before turning around, back to the elevator “Legato! We seem to have forgotten about an important call to make.”
“Yes sir.” The blue haired man quickly followed Knives back, getting to the elevator shaft fist and waving his keycard. Once the two were on their way up and out of sight, Meryl groaned out loud about the loss of her lucky pen, Roberto laughed and gave Meryl a too hard pat on the back.
“Good on you newbie for accepting your fate. The last person who tried to get anything of theirs Vash related was fired on the spot. Alrighty everyone, drinks are on me after work, let's get back to it.”
After that crazy first week on the job, Meryl had managed to settle in well enough, she was indeed growing tired of listening to the same songs day in and day out, apparently this was a quirk of the main building that she worked it; Plant-vation had lots of offices around the world and most big cities like the one she was in had at least two though transferring out of the headquarters was harder then transferring it.
She still liked Vash the Stampede but had learnt to drown out his music, though a new album and concert tour was coming up next year so at least there would be something new playing soon. The week turned into a month and soon her six months probation was coming up and being in head office meant that she would get a fifteen minute one on one with Knives in person rather than online.
Meryl was at her desk as always, free of personal items, kept clean and her focus on her work when she felt the tap of someone on her shoulder. She looked up to see Legato with his trademark resting bitch face peering down at her. “Come with me for your allotted time with Mr. Knives.”
She stood up, locking her workstation and kept a few steps behind Legato as she followed him to the elevators. It took a moment for one to come, neither saying anything the whole time and the silence (aside from the constant background music) continued all the way up to the 60th floor where there was only a short hallway leading up to large double doors with shiny golden handles. Legago knocked three times and waited a moment for the “enter” before opening the door.
Inside was what one would expect to see of one of the top 30 CEO’s offices; floor to ceiling windows, the room was bigger than most people's apartments, a large dark real wood desk in the centre and some doors leading to other private quarters and probably the nicest bathroom in the city's downtown.
However there were things you’d more expect to see in a teenaged girls room too; along rich wooden bookshelves mixed in with ledgers and other books were figurines and plushes, acrylic stands, keychains and every manner of memorabilia of Vash the Stampede. Where one would expect an oil painting of Knives above a fireplace mantle was the absolute highest resolution photo of Vash in his trademark red coat and winning smile, hands forming a heart and little heart emojis photoshopped around him. The room was filled to the brim with everything Vash related there could possibly be.
Meryl thought of her stolen pen, she could see it in a cup holder with others from the set on the desk and swallowed thickly to keep her cool as Knives looked up from the monitor in front of him. He looked up at her and gestured to the chair on her side of the desk, she took a few stiff steps and sat down, hands gripping into her dress pants and she worked to keep her face as natural as possible.
“So, Ms. Stryfe, you’ve managed to make it six months with the company, congratulations on the first milestone.” Knives didn’t speak with any enthusiasm, looking her over a moment before reaching for his coffee mug, one depicting a chibi version of Vash in his sweet lolita dress, the mug seemed comically small in his large hands.
“Ye- Yes sir! Mr. Knives! I look forward to working even harder and beginning what I’ve learned in my six years of schooling to the company! If you would like, I could forward on my capstone project to you.”
He raised one of his thin blond eyebrows at her and gave a noncommittal sound. “Pass it along to your department lead and we’ll see.”
‘Oh gods it’s only been five minutes and I’m ready to pass out’ Meryl thought to herself worried how to fill the last ten with knives’ complete non-interest when there was a sudden rhythmic knocking on the doors behind her.
Knives shot up from his large office chair, circling around his desk, focus completely off of her when the doors flew open.
“Niaaa!! Surprise!”
She knew that voice, she would forever know that voice. She could only just turn her head around, body overcome with shock as she saw none other than the one and only Vash the Stampede striding into the room and Knives was rushing to greet him.
“Vash! What a wonderful surprise!” Knives swept Vash up in his arms, holding him with the ease his large well toned frame allowed a good foot off the ground.
“I hope I’m not interrupting any big important meeting” Vash said with a giggle, he was still smiling but opened his eyes and could see Meryl seated at his desk and gave her a wave. Knives looked over his shoulder at her. She could see the smile melt off his face as he turned his attention from Vash to her.
“No, not at all, we had just finished so you can go, Ms Stryfe. Now.”
“Aww no need to be rude Nai, here!” Vash was still held up by his waste by Knives but reached into an inner pocket of his red coat and pulled out a wanted poster of him and a sharpy, autographing the poster and held it out to her as she began to leave the room “It’s the art for my upcoming album, you’re just in luck as it’s about to officially drop but you get the first sneak peak!”
She took the poster from Vash and looked at it; it was styled like one of those classic posters from a western movie, Vash’s boyish charm radiating from the smile and his right hand on his chin, in bold red letters it had what must be the new album title on the top ‘Wanted; your love and peace!’ and said ‘Vash the Stampede’ on the bottom with a ridiculous bounty of $$6 million under the name.
“Th-Thank you!” She couldn’t help herself but smile wide, it was hard not to be happy around Vash, even when she could feel the daggers Knives was staring into her back (it honestly felt like he was actually stabbing her with how intense his looks was.) She just kept walking, making it to the still open double doors and didn’t dare look behind her as she could hear them.
“Vash!!! How could you not give your number one biggest fan big brother the first poster?!”
Meryl damn near tripped as she passed the threshold, doors slowly closing behind her. Brother. They were brothers?!
“I’m sorry Nai, here, you can have as many as you’d like to make up for it! Oh! You still keep a mini-me in your pocket!”
The door couldn’t close fast enough but Meryl was clearly out of mind to Knives as he gave a low chuckle “I’ll always keep you close to my heart”
The doors had finally, mercifully closed, fully soundproof. Merly needed a minute or sixty to process everything she had seen, the poster held gently in her hands the only proof that she wasn’t dreaming. She looked in the small hallway before her and saw Legato, standing stoic as ever and another man, he had dark hair and tan skin, dressed in a ruffled black suit and was sucking on a lollipop. The two men were clearly in a staring contest before Meryl came into view.
“Sorry there Little Lady if you were meeting with Vash’s big bro, he’s been dying to surprise him for a while now” the dark haired man spoke. “Ah Vash gave you a poster, how nice. Now I’ll need you to sign this NDA before letting you get back to work.” The man pulled out a contract from his suit jacket and held out a pen, not from the same series but it was still Vash merch, this one with a black cat’s head as a charm dangling off of it.
“Uhh…” She took the contract and pen in her hands and looked it over; legalise was not what she went to school for. “This is for…?”
“You can’t post that poster online until the official drop and you can’t speak about Vash and Knives/Nia. You know how it is with Idols, they need to give off the illusion of being available. Unless you want to mess with Vash’s body guard” The man smirked, pointing a thumb to himself.
Even though she had known this was real, Meryl was really hoping to wake up from this nightmare as she signed away. Giving the contract back to the man but kept the pen.
“Well then, Legato, you can take her back, don’t worry I’ll be keeping watch.”
She didn’t think it was possible but Legato’s resting bitch face intensified “Wolfwood.” Was all he said as he turned from the man to look over Meryl and simply called for the elevator that was thankfully still there.
Meryl was staring at her monitors, had been for the last two hours. She opened her desk drawer to see the poster and the pen still there; she would take them home with her tonight.
“So, you still with us, newbie? Survived the lion's den?” Roberto placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her slightly to wake her from her stupor.
“Yes, sir. I’ll be emailing you my capstone project if you could please review it and pass it up along the chain.” Meryl looked at the clock on the corner of her desktop, it was 4:30 she could make it the half hour till quitting time and go drink the day away.
Overhead, the speaker system began to play ‘Feathers Like Knives’ stripped down version and the whole office floor gave a groan.