The soft musical notes of a piano had Joe Hills blinking sleep from their eyes. It wasn’t unpleasant, which was a nice contrast to other alarms he’d tried- he shuddered at the memory of the rooster one he’d tried for less than a week before changing it. They’d always been a fairly light sleeper, so a loud, blaring alarm wasn’t exactly necessary, they’d found. Besides, it gave a slow, calm start to mornings, instead of the annoyance of shooting out of bed to shut off the obnoxious noise coming out of your phone. She made a mental note to focus on softer alarms next time she changed it.
They sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from their eyes before leaning over to shut off their alarm. He wasn’t particularly excited for his morning to start, not with work only an hour away and a bad night’s sleep under his belt, but the thought of seeing Cleo made the daunting shift seem a bit more bearable. It had only taken a long time of begging and a few small bribes to land them in cubicles next to each other, but Joe wouldn’t trade it for the world. Boring office job? Horrible. Boring office job with Cleo sending him memes on the company computers and throwing balled up paperwork at his head? Still horrible, but at least they had to suffer through it together.
The harsh chill of the February morning definitely called for a cardigan, of which Joe picked out a nice green and purple patterned, as well as some checkered black pants. Patterns are fun! That’s why he loved wearing mismatched socks- to others’ dismay. Cleo groaned and whined when Joe deliberately mismatched the bundle of various socks with philosophers’ faces on them (Cleo had pinched her nose when Joe explained that Archimedes and Plato still needed to have profound discussions and debates while trapped in the closest thing to hell Joe could think of on this mortal plane- the stinky work shoe.) Besides, badgering Cleo enough to get her complaining was one of Joe’s favorite activities, why would he want to stop?
After a quick stop to the bathroom to freshen up, she made sure to stop and make some tea before heading out. It was non-caffeinated, of course. At some point a few years ago, caffeine had started giving her migraines, to which she sadly had to let go her beloved coffee and energy drinks. It felt weird, though, to leave the house without a drink in hand, and so came the cheap, shitty American tea that would probably offend any Brit that came within ten miles of it. Oh, and a granola bar! Joe usually got nauseous when eating in the morning, but would get annoyingly drowsy without eating, so granola bars it was. Curse the human body for being so weirdly contradictory sometimes.
Thankfully the commute wasn’t so bad. Traffic wasn’t too awfully congested, filled with every other 9-5 office drone that lived in this city- which, sadly, seemed to be a lot. But, Joe took good things as they came; like the construction he passed every day for the past three years being lighter and less obstructive than usual, or remembering to slow down to not break his axel hitting that one pothole in the middle of the highway that hadn’t been fixed since he moved here. So that was a win, they supposed. Even the parking lot was emptier than usual, earning them an open spot only a short walk to the door! Score!
Though maybe things weren’t meant to be too nice, as the smoke cloud blocking the way to the office entrance had Joe doubling over in a coughing fit.
“Sorry, man,” Skizz muttered before taking another drag of his cigarette.
Joe was finally able to compose himself, shakily standing back up straight. “Isn’t there like- a back entrance or something you could do that at?” She coughed again, blinking tears from her eyes.
The security guard shrugged, checking his watch. Whatever was on it seemed to be satisfactory, as he flicked the cigarette to the ground and stomped it out with his boot. “Was closer to the front, I’m not spending half my damn break walking across the building.” Skizz rolled his eyes, shouldering his way past Joe and into the building, leaving her glaring down at the flickering piece of litter on the sidewalk… Probably not best to pick up and throw out a fire hazard, especially when Joe had no idea where the nearest ashtray would be. Better to leave some litter rather than cause a trash fire, right?
Joe elected to shrug it off, wiping whatever wetness remained on his face before continuing inside. Of course, it couldn’t be a peaceful start to her day, could it?
“I know you took it!” Bdubs snapped, the front desk a mess of open drawers and cabinets and papers thrown about hastily, presumably as a result of looking for something. Poor Keralis sat at the end of the table as far from the ruckus as he could get, typing away at the computer and trying desperately to scarf down his breakfast as fast as possible while ignoring the arguing mere feet away.
“I didn’t take anything!” Scar spat. “I work securityhere, wouldn’t that be hypocritical of me?”
His smug grin had Bdubs’ eye twitching- the man looked furious. “You took my watch and I know it. I need that-” Bdubs began to grab and pull at his hair, crouching back down to shuffle through items for what must be the billionth time.
“Y’know, Scar,” Keralis paused in shoving his face with kielbasa, egg, and cheese to pipe up, “things have been going missing around the office. Shouldn’t you be the first to know that, seeing as you ‘work security here’?”
Scar frowned deeply, rolling his eyes. “Of course I know, Skizz and I have been investigating it since it started. What do you think we’ve been doing?”
Both Bdubs and Keralis silently stared at the guard blankly.
Scar shifted awkwardly on his feet. “You know what? I don’t need to hear this from some lousy receptionists. It’s absurd that you’d accuse me.” And with that, he’d stormed off down the hall, out of sight.
Bdubs let out a shaky sigh, collapsing into his chair and burying his face in his hands. Joe cautiously approached, making eye contact with Keralis and sharing a ‘what is happening?’ look with him. Keralis shrugged, and Joe sighed. “Need help, Bdubs?”
“Fuck off,” came muffled from behind his hands.
Joe nodded. “Got it, fucking off.” They made a mental note to keep a close eye on their belongings, tightening a hand around the bag slung over their shoulder.
Up the elevator, down the hall, two lefts, and there it was; both their saving grace and their worst enemy: their cubicle. Cleo poked her head out of the neighboring stall as she heard them approach, her face lighting up into a wide smile accompanied by a wave. Joe grinned, dropping down in his seat.
“Why, howdy, Cleo!” Joe hummed out some random tune as they booted up their computer.
“You’re a bit late, aren’t you?” Cleo remarked, ignoring whatever she’d been working on in favor of turning to watch Joe clock in.
“Got caught up with some drama downstairs, I suppose. You don’t think Cub will mind me being, uh-” They checked the timeclock, “-three minutes late, will he?”
“Oh, you know he will.” Cleo snorted, turning back around to answer their ringing phone. Joe listened to her go through the motions of greeting and redirecting whatever client had called as he scanned over his email. Apparently the deadline for the label redesign submission had been moved to today. Joe didn’t even have time to groan about it before Cleo spun back around, hold music leaking out from the phone’s speaker. “And just so you know, the internet’s all slow today. So have fun with that.”
Joe let their head fall onto their desk. “This world is created specifically to make me suffer.”
Cleo leaned over to pat their back. “What a poor baby,” she cooed before turning back to her computer. “Now get back to work so you can pay your bills.”
They were just about to formulate the greatest, most clever comeback of all human history- when Cub started making his way down their aisle. Both of the workers startled, scattering to their correct spots and desperately attempting to look busy and not like they were bickering, which they totally hadn’t been. Not at all.
Cub stopped just outside of Cleo’s cubicle, leaving Cleo frowning as they raised an eyebrow up at him. “Yeah? What’s wrong?”
Their boss gave a quick nod of acknowledgement before absolutely dumping a hefty stack of papers on Cleo’s desk. “I need you to file these for me by end of day. Think you could do that?”
Joe watched as Cleo barely held back an eye twitch, plastering on the best fake smile and large eyes she could. “Of course, Cubby Wubby. Want me to pack your lunch and tuck you into bed as well?”
He glared at her. “Enough with the sass, Cleo. How about you get it on my desk at 4:30, then?” And then he was off, the door to his office clicking shut before Cleo burst.
“Who does he think he is?” They spat, sifting through the stack of paper. “This isn’t even anything important! It’s, like, customer reviews over the past six months- we sell paper clips, for Christ’s sake!”
Joe grimaced. “We can always split it, if you need the help-”
Cleo shook their head, pinching their nose. “No, no, you’ve got your own shit, just- let me complain for a bit, okay?”
He nodded. “Understood, complain away.”
Things went off without too much of a hitch, thankfully. Joe and Cleo got into the groove of Joe hitting a slow-internet roadblock to lament about every hour while Cleo filed through paperwork and softly cursed Cub’s entire existence throughout. Eventually around midday, Grian, the IT guy, stopped by to fix the internet issues. Joe barely ever even saw him- honestly, they’d forgotten the man even worked at this place. He was like a shadow in the night; blink and you’ll miss him. As soon as Joe had realized he was in the building, he’d already left again, which sucked with last month’s development of Joe’s computer shutting off randomly. They’d sent in a request for it to be looked at… which had never been followed up on. You can always count on Grian to not show up, he supposed.
It was nice to have the internet back up and running properly, though. It certainly increased the speed of the label redesigning, even if it was more than halfway through the workday. Joe had barely even been able to get any success on the project, though not without trying. It seemed like each inch of progress got set back by a foot of technical difficulties. Joe sighed as she eyed the clock. They weren’t looking forward to the inevitable reprimanding that would be coming their way tomorrow.
Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, that wouldn’t end up as the case.
Thirty minutes before 5:00, Joe and Cleo were discussing whether they should go out for dinner together- should they stop by that new Thai place in town? Or stick to the familiar fast food that was just down the street? Joe had been making the argument for peanut noodles when Cub stepped between their cubicles, looking thoroughly displeased.
They frowned, glancing between their boss and Cleo, who looked worried, across the aisle. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“So I see that you haven’t gotten that redesign done, right?”
She nodded. “The internet was down, like, all day. I know the deadline is in a few minutes, but I can’t really finish in that time.”
Cub nodded. “How about you stay late tonight? You can leave as soon as you get it done. I’ll give you overtime as well.”
Joe’s frown deepened. “You said that when I stayed overtime three months ago and I never got my overtime pay-”
“You’ll be getting it, Joe. Now get back to work,” Cub snapped, already on his way back to his office. When the door loudly shut behind him, Joe slumped over his desk with a groan.
“What’s gotten up his ass today?” Cleo sighed, looking over Joe with pity as they scrubbed their face with their hands. “Want me to pick you up some food and drop it by your apartment?”
Joe nodded. “Yeah, that’d be nice. Thank you, Cleo.”
She stood, gathering her coat and her bag before patting Joe on the shoulder. “Don’t work too hard, we don’t want you falling asleep at your desk again.”
Joe gave a weary snort at the memory. “Be safe heading home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It was disheartening to watch Cleo leave while still shackled by his corporate chains, but what could he do? Best to just get the project over with, go home and eat his shitty takeout while watching Saturday Night Live Reruns, and get HR involved in the overtime situation tomorrow. But first: finish the design.
A program crash, two design element scraps, and a small breakdown later- it was done. Joe glanced at the clock: 7:56. It’d really taken nearly three hours of overtime? She mourned the loss of her free-time that will definitely not be fairly compensated until a long battle with HR, but it was done. She gathered her cardigan, her bag, what was left of her brain that had practically melted out of her ears, and headed through the dim, liminal space of the mostly empty building.
It was considerably chillier than when he’d gone out that morning, shivering and he pulled his cardigan back on. But freedom was just a few feet away.
She packed everything into the passenger seat, checked the mirrors, turned the key, and…
Joe paused, frowning as she cranked the key again, hearing the engine try and fail to start up. He even tried two more times, just to make certain that he was stuck in his horrible job’s parking lot in the freezing cold and tired enough to want to pass out where he sat. It was probably the cold that shorted out the engine, her old, shoddy car not used to being offline longer than usual. Joe sighed, gathering his stuff again and stepping out.
What now? Tow truck company? A bus? Call Cleo and inconvenience her? Joe decided to walk across the street and grab a coffee and warm up before making a decision. Besides, she needed some caffeine anyway. The street wasn’t very busy, the light changed quick, and the crosswalk wasn’t too crowded. Only a few people were dotted around the sidewalk, and some sort of construction seemed to be happening overhead.
Joe surged forward, the coffee shop just in reach. Oh, the sweet forbidden fruit of the coffee bean they hadn’t had in so long was calling their name. Just a bit further-
Something that sounded like cable gave a loud SNAP!, and some workers yelled out. Joe looked up, and realized the construction he’d seen instead was a piano being lifted- because of course it was. And that piano was dangling precariously by only one cable that was steadily failing and people were yelling and it was falling and-
thank you @anonymousacres and @actualori for ideas and to @dtandsomenumbers for betaing!
