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Office

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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Papers rustled amongst the ever-present tone of a phone ringing. It wasn't always on the same desk of course, the busily working furs bustling about their duties whether it was jaunting off into the factory or popping between desks to liaise with co-workers, but the phone always rang. On a loop, the sales line went around and around, a caller stubbornly hanging on only to be told that, no, they couldn't sell to them as they were not a business. Why couldn't he be a business? How rude they were to not want his business as a customer? What did they mean it was a factory and not a shop? Could he speak to their manager? Brace yourself, it's another Monday.

One badger set himself apart from the hustle, sitting quietly in his chair with his back to the centre of the office as he focused on his work and his work alone. Derek could have perhaps done his work a little better if he'd been back and forth to the factory like a couple of the others, but he'd been told that he needed to be in his chair most of the time. So, he sat in his chair and called whoever he needed to speak to in the same building. He'd thought it would have been okay to speak to people in the same office in person, but he'd been swiftly reprimanded there too and therefore learned to e-mail, even if it meant that he got the answer to his question later than he would have otherwise.

Office politics ruled, but Derek lasted through each turnover, each redundancy and each sale. He'd survived when others had been deemed inadequate and yet he was as far from invulnerable as he could ever have imagined.

Tick, tick, tick went the clock, only audible in a brief break in voices. The phone rang. His eyes prickled at the corners and he took a breath, smoothing his paws down his dark grey trousers as if to flatten out a crease that was not actually. Unlike most bachelor males, Derek spent an inordinate amount of time ensuring his clothes were smart and presentable to a fault.

"You got anything nice going on at the weekend then?"

He winced at the question, the crane's voice grating as she popped her pretty black and white beak up over the divider between their desks. Harriet batted her eyelashes prettily and he wondered, not for the first time, if she was quite happy at home with her husband and no chicks in the nest.

"Oh..." Derek waved his paw vaguely. "Just the usual, nothing special."

It was the standard response and yet it still seemed false slipping off his tongue. Harriet bobbed her beak and disappeared back behind the divider, but that didn't mean he had escaped her attention.

"I'm heading down to London," she chirped, tapping furiously away at the keyboard. "Got all the gal pals out for a jaunt - it's going to be a right hoot!"

Dereck tried to muster up some enthusiasm at the thought of the hens out enjoying themselves and failed dismally.

"Well, ah, I do hope the weather will be fine for you."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be," Harriet murmured. "I simply won't have my feathers get wet after they've been professionally preened - I won't stand for it, I tell you!"

Laughing shrilly, she clacked the mouse down obnoxiously, rapping and scraping it over the desk as if that would make it work more efficiently.

"Really gets my feathers in a flap!"

He would have smiled. He could have smiled. It would have been so, so easy to smile. And yet he couldn't. Wouldn't. Could there be a difference?

Muttering something non-committal, Dereck returning to his work, numbers leaping from the spreadsheet before him in a blur of lines. Concentration came with difficulty, wading through a sludge of data before finally getting to the crux of the matter. And, even then, everything had to be sorted, planned and positioned just so. Otherwise it all went to pot and what was the point of doing it at all if it wasn't going to be done right?

Harriet huffed and he was sure she was fluffing up her feathers, but he didn't bother to look. His heart leapt into his throat, restricting the room he had left for breath. Oh, there he went again, pissing off another co-worker in the office. Did he have to do that? If he kept going along those lines, he'd have nobody left to annoy. Not that he had any say in who was hired or fired, of course, no: that was all down to boss Julianne.

His lips twisted unconsciously. That weasel. He'd never seen such a plump one and, despite her apparent penchant for running, the weight just wasn't melting off her. The diet shakes were one thing and everyone who was of any importance in the office seemed to take all opportunities to commend her for looking after herself so well. But if he brought a sandwich with deli meat back to the office? Scandalous! Didn't he want to take care of his body and think about what he was putting into it?

It was funny how furs could see things so differently, but his work called and he paid no further mind of it, the rhythmic tap and clack of his claws on the keyboard as good as any lullaby. His eyelids grew heavy and Dereck fought down a lap, pulling a face at the screen.

"Something got your tail in a twist there, pal?"

He smoothed his features into a perfectly neutral expression before facing the fox over the other divider. Jerry's long muzzle denoted cunning and it was more than well known that the vulpine had a particularly loose tongue. Whereas the contested 'job' of office gossip traditionally fell to those of the female persuasion, the red fox did a pretty damn good job himself of knowing anything and everything that went on in the office from what beverage was Julianne's trendy new drink of choice to who was being fired. Though, if gossip proved true, there seemed more to say about the fox than anyone else.

And, further, if gossip proved true, the fox had more than an inkling into the firings and hirings than he cared to let on. There'd only been one name on his lips of late and a particular glimmer in his eye when he looked at Dereck. And he didn't like how the fox's gaze lingered, a knowing smile on his black lips.

"Oh, nothing," Dereck replied after an inordinately, yet pointed, pause. "Every client believes themselves to be the priority."

Jerry studied him, russet ears twitching.

"Should every client not be the priority?"

Dereck sighed and pressed his lips together.

"Not when you have as many accounts with such varying spends, Jerry," he explained. "Nobody can do ten things at once, so they've got to go in some kind of order..."

He ran his fingers back through the greying stripes atop his head and slid his gaze away. The right words... Why did the right words never seem to come when he needed them to?

"That's what I meant by prioritising," he finished lamely. "Everything must be taken care of, but we can't do everything at once. You prioritise too, I'm sure."

The fox's eyes gleamed and, as Jerry took an inordinately large breath, Dereck knew with a sinking feeling in his gut that he'd said the wrong thing.

"I cannot imagine not putting every single one of my clients as a priority!" He trilled, loud enough for the entire office to hear. "Why, Dereck, you must have some special, easy customers indeed to not have to worry about whether or not they are not all priorities to you!"

Dereck froze, heart in his throat. He licked his lips, but his mouth was too dry, suddenly devoid of saliva. As every head in the office turned to face him, he cowered into his chair, the best sheepish grin he could manage plastered across his muzzle.

"Oh... It's not like that, Jerry, you've got the wrong end of the stick, mate..."

But the fox was on a roll and he was not to be stopped. Puffing his chest up, a tuft of white fur poking out the collar of his shirt, sleeves rolled back to his elbows, he set the badger in his sights and went to town.

"Dereck, I am utterly dismayed to hear you talk so!" He admonished with a wag of his finger. "Have you really and truly given up on your job, the pride you hold in your job, to that abysmal extent?"

Jerry held his paw to his chest, eyes exaggeratedly wide as if he was trying to make them pop out of his skull, posing for comic effect. But there was nothing comic about the path he was leading Dereck down, the entire office except for the ranting, proclaiming fox completely and utterly silent. Behind her desk, the boss leaned forward, peering over her glasses.

"No, no," Dereck tried to placate his co-worker, glancing around as cold sweat matted the fur on the back of neck. "Jerry, mate, I'm afraid you've got it all wrong, mate, I never meant it like that."

"Oh." Jerry fixed him with a stare that would have made a lesser fur quail. "So you _don't_think that some customers are simply better than others, or do you?"

Dereck sighed. His boss' eyes burned into his back. Did it really matter what he said? The black hole yawned, begging him in. If only it truly was possible to simply disappear.

"I'm not better than anyone, if that's what you're trying to say, Jerry," he tried after an inordinately long pause that seemed to stretch on forever in the moment. "And no one of my customers is more important than another. I only cannot do every task on my to-do list simultaneously."

"Ohhhh, so you have a to-do list now - how fancy!"

Jerry flapped his paws, a smirk pulling at his lips. The illicit edge to his smile was the only darker edge to his expression, which was otherwise carefully pulled into a façade of light banter. He'd never be pulled aside for bullying or stirring up trouble - not as long as he worked there. No, the fox was far too clever for that, much to the detriment of everyone else.

But there was nothing that could be done about it; everyone knew what Jerry was like. And such was the culture of the place that nothing would ever be done about that kind of fur. It was the way of it in the conservative corporate world they tried to encapsulate and there was nothing that could ever have dissuaded upper management from their flawed vision of a perfect world.

Defeatist.

Against himself, Dereck lowered his muzzle, staring down at his desk as the barrage of words, flowery abuse, continued. Even a few of his other co-workers chimed in uncertainly, eager to show which side they were on. They, of course, did their work better than him, having been there for less time and being subjected to less corruption. Dereck could only do what he did to get by and deliver the standard of solid work he'd always done. It wasn't his fault if it was not enough for those that declared all achievements be screamed from the rooftops. He rubbed the back of his neck, making a face at the wet fur he found there.

It was a poisonous place, a despicable place. He swallowed the urge to whimper. He would not show them such weakness. Holding his head high, Dereck raised a carefully studied eyebrow at the fox, sitting back with his arms folded. Let the vulpine ramble himself out. He could make himself look bad and do his worst, but he wouldn't get any more bait from the badger. Sometimes it was the grey-muzzles that were the wisest of all to turn their cheek to drama. Dereck swallowed. He only hoped his boss would say the same.

Julianne rose to her paws, bosom rolling with a heavy sigh. He closed his eyes. Perhaps it was indeed time to face the music that had been calling his name for oh so long. The tread of her heels, unsuitable for office work in a conservative environment, rapped dangerously through the concrete, sounding out even with the thin, threadbare carpet. Dereck had thought that he'd last to see that one replaced. Maybe not after all.

The exchange worker from a foreign branch of the company, a gentlefur who had remained quiet with his eyes averted throughout the wholeexchange, silently got to his paws, the wildcat slinking to the printer as if he would have much rather have disappeared into the carpet he stood on. But, as he reached for his printout, Julianne snapped the folder in her paws shut with a sharp clack.

As if he'd been bitten on the behind, the wildcat comically leapt into the air with a hiss and spun about, eyes crazed and teeth bared. When he saw it was only his manager, he, of course, struggled to regain his composure, but swayed like a drunkard and stumbled over his own hind paws in his haste to recover himself.

And then Julianne was there to save the day, grabbing him by his arm to steady and right the poor lad, who blushed like a virgin. Smoothing his ruffled fur flat once more, he mumbled an apology, the printout crumpled in one paw.

Julianne gave him a winning smile and leaned in, putting her muzzle close to his ear as if sharing a secret that was not for anyone else to know.

"Fabian, in this country, we take our gin with tonic."

And the office erupted into howls of laughter - even Fabian cracked a smile at the weasel, her quick thinking easing the awkwardness of the moment. Harriet shrieked and slapped the table with her wing-like hands, rocking back and forth with such mirth that Dereck very nearly leapt to her aid, thinking she was going to topple off her chair entirely. Julianne flapped her paws at Fabian, ushering him back to his seat, which he did with a slighter darker pink tinge to the insides of his ears than he would normally boast, if one was looking closely.

Dereck inhaled sharply, events transpiring around him seeming to move in slow motion, allowing him to take in every little detail and more - far more than he would have been able to see, surely, under normal circumstances. Or maybe he simply had not had his eyes open before.

Maybe the office wasn't so bad, after all. She could have easily mocked Fabian cruelly for his mishap, or even disciplined him for doing something so base as to _hiss_at her, and yet she chose not to. Julianne allowed it to slide. Jerry's attention had slipped from Dereck too and all suddenly seemed right with his world again, the sun shining just a little more brightly outside. His colleagues trilled, their joy swelling to fill the room as he shrank into his little corner, down and down and down and down.

The badger slumped in his chair and covered his sigh with a paw across his muzzle, eyes creasing in at the corners, though there was no crystal of mirth in his expression. It should have been funny and yet he couldn't force the corners of his lips to pull up in the smile he so badly needed.

If it wasn't the office that was the problem...perhaps it was him.

"Dereck?"

He lifted his head, blinking guiltily. He should really have been working. Julianne didn't like it if he stopped working. Her path had clearly continued on past Fabian, once he had been set steady back in his chair, to him, her true target. Palms sweating, he moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and tried to speak, but the only sound that broke his lips was a gargled grunt.

The weasel sighed and folded her arms across her large chest, fat rolls jiggling beneath her floral top. He would have giggled if his stomach had not been churning with thoughts of what was to come. Levelly, Julianne stared him down until all the badger could do was clear his throat sheepishly and look away. Her bosom heaved in yet another sigh that seemed to release the weight of the world and none of it at the same time. Dereck wondered just how much energy she expended daily in sighing.

Peering at him over the top of her spectacles, Julianne surveyed him with a sharp, critical eye that seemed to pierce through to the very fibre of his being, the crux of him even deeper than his soul. Shifting his weight from one seat bone to the other, the badger gulped and flitted his gaze around the office fitfully.

Julianne was not offering any mercy.

"Would you come out to the post room for a moment, Dereck?" There was pity in her gaze. "There's something we need to discuss."

And what choice did he have, even if he knew what the inevitable outcome of such a conversation would be? He almost scoffed and only just caught himself in the nick of time. She didn't even think him worth a more private conversation in one of the conference rooms. Everyone knew you could hear what went on in the post room, far from a suitable meeting room, through the walls.

He nodded.

Dragging himself up to his paws with a heavy heart, the badger tried to smile at his colleagues, but each and every one of them turned away, suddenly quiet as if they had only been focused on their work and nothing about his conversation interested them in the slightest. Back close to the desk, he met her squarely.

"Of course, Julianne," he said, surreptitiously scooting the tiny model of a moose into the cup of his paw. "I've got a moment to talk."

But a moment would be all he'd have. Julianne smiled primly, a thin, tight-lipped smile that strained her weasel lips just a little too wide to be pleasant. A smear of pink lipstick stained her front teeth, but in a sudden fit of rebellion, he chose not to tell her. He owed her nothing: nothing at all. The little moose antlers dug into his palm, cutting a line that he'd later trace the tip of a claw across and remember just how it had felt to take his leave of his chapter at the company. And Julianne's too.

The badger's eyes darkened and he did not look back as he left the office for the last time, Julianne leading him to a fate she believed she had orchestrated. But she was wrong. Dereck took a breath, his moist nose twitching. Perhaps she'd always been wrong to underestimate him.

Tightening his paw around the tiny, plastic moose, the antlers poked between his fingers. The door closed behind him. Dereck smiled.

His time had come.