Office Flowers, a dragonfable fanfic

This was an experiment with genderbending my OC Ty but it became more of an Office AU with the Rose. There's a sprinkle/mention of Belle/Hero and this is a shortened sfw version of the original (which you can find with some easy searching)

How did Ty end up in the Rose Corporation's main lobby? Why was he hiding behind the couches in the sitting area with only his briefs to uphold is honor? That's not important. This was a school day, there was no time for thinking about something stupid like that.

His life hinged on streaking as fast as he could during peak morning hours and diving into the nearest taxi without anyone snapping a pic of his face.

"Come on, come on." Ty gritted his teeth, waiting for the sea of uniformed office workers to part. Oh god, security was already patrolling the doors, probably armed to the teeth with tasers. Nah, the lobby was built in front of the main skyscraper with a ceiling made of glass and shaped like a dang rose. They probably had taser batons.

It was over.

"Pssst!"

Or not.

"Hi there," A kind face was leaning over the back of the couch, dropping his winter coat over Ty's shoulders. "Crazy part last night, right?"

"Mmhmm, I didn't make it home." Ty made a sheepish smile at his savior.

"Well, no need to go," The guy smiled back, putting the brakes on the hope spot and Ty's poor heart. "I have an extra suit in my car. Let me get it for you!"

The swell guy was named Sam, and he told Ty that there was no need to "Ty" the tie while winking a lot.

"Before I got the job, I practiced with a tie for hours," Sam was comparing two identical blue ties to see which fit Ty's neck better. It took slightly less time than brushing Ty's hair and apologizing over how his clothes hugged Ty too tight. "It's a real shame only having to fix one every morning."

"Cute." Ty teased, flustering Sam into a sweet shade of pink.

"W-wow, thanks," Sam stammered, deftly tying the Ty around his neck and smoothing out his white collar. "I usually get coffee splashed when I mention that."

"Is that why you have an extra suit ready?" Ty asked, following Sam out of the lobby bathroom. He was nice but as soon as he was at his desk, Ty had to bounce. Hopefully, he could gently break into Sam's car and return the suit the next day.

"Yeah, but I don't mind ironing two sets of clothes," Sam began leading Ty to the elevators, melding into the throng of employees. "So, which department do you work for?"

"You tell me," Ty glanced at a huge TV hanging from the ceiling, spouting the Rose's motto; "Helping you helping yourself." What the hell did that mean? "C-cause I'm a new hire! I'm barely even sure what we do here." He said quickly, noticing Sam pale.

Eyes darting from one end of the lobby to the other, Sam whispered "But not a cop, right?"

Yikes.

"You know, I love working here! We get along really well! Haha wow, so much harmony, we're practically a temple." Sam forced a loud laugh as they passed the security desk and no further.

An entire wall of meat decked out in more Velcro lined armor than an actual cop blocked the pair's way, tapping a very large baton on the palm of his huge hand.

"Chief of Security Sofist!" Sam exclaimed, shoulders high and shivering.

"Welcome to the Rose Towers," Sofist leaned down towards them both. "You know why I'm saying that?"

"Because your largest muscle is your heart?" Ty smirked, grabbing Sam's arm and started to circumvent the behemoth.

"Don't be smart. Smart is evil!" He turned, stopping them with a jagged glare. "I've never seen your face before, and I have every spindly spectacle on file. Why don't you step behind the desk and we can have a chat?"

Ty would have kept being smart but Sam was shoved into him and another suit just had to walk in between them and Sofist.

"Keep up the good work, hill-billy." Theano sneered, tossing a plastic cup of coffee over his shoulder and it landed, overturned on Sofist's head like a party hat.

The coffee on his face evaporated instantly as Sofist's face went red with rage. Leaping over the security desk, Bradley hugged Sofist by the waist and dug his heels into the floor with all his might to keep the bull from charging.

"No, not Theano! Remember last time!" Bradley hissed desperately, just about elbowed in the head by Sofists' flailing arms. "Akanthus is over there! Calm down!"

Looking over to where Bradley was staring, Ty saw Akanthus standing ten twenty feet away. Running his hand over the front of his helmet, he made a beleaguered sigh and returned to his morning routine without another word.

"Time to go!" Ty slung an arm around Sam's shoulder and hurried him to the elevators while Sofist was too busy blinded by red.

Stuffing themselves into a packed elevator, Ty watched Sam jab the button to the fourth floor when the other passengers were headed to level fifty and over.

"Which is your stop?" Sam asked.

"Er, I'm not sure. I'm the new hire, remember?" Ty struggled to come up with a generic office job and ignored the sound of rolling eyes from the rest of the peanut gallery. "Uuu the new secretary!"

A collective gasp filled the cramped elevator and suddenly, Ty's new co-workers were pressing themselves against the walls to give him more space.

"Really? Oh my god! And you don't know where you're supposed to go?" Sam exclaimed, jabbing the button to the top most floor. "Don't worry, Ty! I got you!"

They weren't even past the first floor and Ty was feeling a fatal case of vertigo.

By the time the elevator was nearing the top, the rest of the occupants had filed out and Sam had changed Ty's soft blue tie to a serious navy.

"I can't believe this, my clothes! On the CEO's secretary," Sam hummed, fussing over a clip he fastened to Ty's suit cuff. "No wonder you're so out of it. You must have partied real hard when you heard you landed the job."

"It was amazing," Ty was sweating, wondering if he could punch the emergency breaks without getting arrested later. Thank god for Sam letting him borrow his vanilla deodorant. "So weird, huh? How we didn't run into each other during the party?"

"Ehem," Sam lowered his voice. "I didn't actually go, they would have thrown me in the dumpster if I did."

Distracted by Sam's sad confession, Ty nearly jumped out of his skin when the bell rang for floor ninety-nine.

"This is so exciting." Sam ushered Ty out of the elevator to the receptionist' desk. Behind him was a long hall lined with rooms fitted with wall-sized frosted windows. At the very end was nothing but plaster and detailed blue wallpaper framing a polished black wooden door, all business.

"This is Ty," Sam patted his shoulder, smiling at the receptionist with the very familiar red hair. "They were just hired as the CEO's Secretary."

Amadeus fingers hovered over his computer's keyboard, glancing between Ty's blood-drained cheeks and a photo of his daughter next to the papermache vase she made.

"You're thirty minutes early," He steepled his fingers and leaned back in the expensive, posture-righting office chair. "Good, Jaania will be happy to see you."

His mercy was torture, and Ty forced a grateful grin and a bow of his head, wishing Amadeus would lop it off and end it all.

"Good luck!" Sam gave Ty a hug, upgrading their relationship to best friends on the spot, and gently pushed him towards the execution chamber.

With nervous eels writhing in his stomach, Ty steadily walked by the rooms of the Rose's elite until he had his hand on a silver knob.

"Hope you can still make it to babysitting tomorrow night." Amadeus called after them.

"Juggling babysitting too? Wow!" Sam gasped, and Ty squeezed his eyes shut, heading on through.

He practically stepped into the fourth dimension; the room was a vacuum that devoured all sound in its sterile white walls and black marble floor. The CEO's desk was made of a warm brown wood that felt alien in its surroundings, on top of a fluffy white rug the decorator must have had a lot of fun with. Behind the desk was a wall made of glass, overlooking the tops of the low hanging louds and the endless blue that melded with the CEO's hair.

Ty would have heard his own heart trying to escape the situation if it weren't for the CEO's typing echoing in the barren office.

Staring for what could have been either a minute or thirty years, Ty's mouth opened and closed, with nothing coming out of it.

Jaania didn't care.

"G'morning!" Ty managed, hand halfway up to giving Miss. Miss-Me a salute and then thinking better of it. "Sir Ma'am Jaania? I'm the new secretary you hired."

Jaania still didn't care.

Tap tap tapping against her white keyboard, she kept her eyes trained on the computer screen for another eternity, like she was waiting for Ty's sweat to pool on her fancy floor.

"I don't time for this." Jaania finally spoke, grabbing a clipboard and holding it out to her left.

Scurrying like he would get shot for letting Jaania's arm hang there for more than a moment, Ty took the clipboard and held in his panting.

"The convention is less than two weeks away and we need more partners, but I need more time for better things to do."

Having no idea about any of what Jaania was saying, Ty nodded his head, making mhmm noises. He flipped through the papers on the clipboard and was further confused.

"My last personal secretary set up a meeting with the head of Sandsea Silks in—"She checked her silver wristwatch. "—two minutes, and was fired too late," Jaania continued to type five pages per minute. "I can't be there and if you can get them to sign, consider your trial period over."

"Wh—"

"Two rooms down on the right," Jaania snapped her fingers and pointed to the door. "Go."

Barely stopping himself from swearing and getting thrown out the building then and there, Ty scurried out of the stifling room and back into the scary hall.

Here it was, the perfect time to escape!

"This way." Amadeus was waiting for him, holding the door open to certain Doom.

It would have been nice to have a grenade hiding in his mouth but Ty, facing down and old 'friend,' winked and patted his clipboard twice.

Not moved in the slightest, Amadeus slammed the door shut between Ty when he shuffled into the long conference room.

At the end of the glass table, a man with a black comb over and spectacles the size of thumbnails sat reading documents on his tablet. He glanced up at Ty with dull eyes, expecting a boy a third his age to breathe some life into him.

By his polished shoes was a briefcase that would do well as a blunt weapon. For a long while, Ty estimated how hard he'd need to hit, how fast the person watching the security feed would run, and if he could survive a seventy-story fall.

Then, the man rubbed the dark bags under his gray eyes. It made Ty consider the rest of him.

For a meeting with the Rose's head and their secretary, you'd think it would be someone just as important with their own secretary and maybe a team of lawyers to supervise the exchange.

Unless, they thought they were more important than they were.

"Are you the secretary?"

"Hmm yes. It will only be me today," The man said, placing the briefcase on the table and opening it to reveal and ungodly stack of papers stuffed inside. Despite that, he spoke like he was going to go through the motions until they reached 'no.' "Can we begin?"

That was a lot of paperwork, which meant this guy knew enough to run things without his boss.

Ready to make one huge gamble, Ty walked over and shoved the briefcase to the carpet.

"Excuse me?" Comb-over was about to stand among his fluttering papers but Ty shoved him back into his seat.

"Do you think you can do your employer's job?" Ty questioned. He took out his wallet, which was no longer warmed in his briefs thank-you-very-much-Sam, and threw a few styled calling cards on the table in front of his client.

"What is the meaning of this?" He demanded, losing his tablet to Ty's gloved hands, no longer warmed by his briefs either. Laugh at that as much as you like, they were still black and Comb-over stopped breathing at the sight. The array of business cards made him give a sharp gasp.

"Let me rephrase that. Do you think you can do a better job than your employer?" Ty asked, bringing up a few news articles for Comb-over's perusal. "Better yet, if they were gone, are you the only one who knows enough to keep Sandsea Silks running?"

Pressing his lips together, Comb-over gripped the arms of his chair and thought hard.

"I would say so."

"For an easy slide into the position, nothing on your hands and no prints on the net, how much would you pay?"

"Um…"

"Guestimate for me," Ty sat himself on the table, crossing his legs. "Can't be under three million though."

"Ten million." Comb-over hissed, teeth gritted and nails digging drawing blood from his palms.

"Oh shoot, I didn't think it'd be this e—" Ty was interrupted by Comb-over's hands slamming on the table.

"Twenty."

Obviously, the promotion was worth more than the paycheck. Or maybe, judging by the man's heaving chest, it was personal.

Not that Ty cared.

Picking up the gold business card, Ty called up the number.

"Hello, Cutesy." He chimed cheerily the moment his call was taken.

"How did you get this number?" The woman on the other end demanded. "I told you that if I ever saw you again, I'd strangle you with your own spine."

"Twenty million," Ty grinned and the threats stopped as he handed the tablet over to let Comb-over see. "Circe did these ones."

The greedy glint in the man's eyes grew and he began signing the documents on Ty's clipboard without reading the fine print.

Sofist and that Akanthus guy were waiting outside.

"There he is!" Sofist stepped forward, cracking his knuckles.

"Here I am! The secretary," Ty stepped forward too, nose just barely touching Sofist's wide chest. "With all the necessary documents." He flipped through the papers on his clipboard, letting them cascade with the sweet sound of approval.

All three of them had to make way for Comb-over to march his victory parade to the elevators.

"A pleasure doing business with you!" He grinned, more alive than on the day he was born. Waving good-bye to them, he hummed a joyous tune and Akanthus turned to Sofist.

"Buh!" Was all Sofist could manage before Akanthus returned to his own office.

"Next time, cry wolf when you have one broken under your arm." He said, slamming the door.

Seething next to Ty's wolfish grin, Sofist continued to ball use ruefully unused fists and muttered insults under this breath next to Ty's wolfish grin.

This was it, the grail of youth! The golden ticket snatched out of some other poor sucker's pauper hands! In a dog eat dog world, Ty had suddenly found himself in a position where he could skip school and skip being thrown on the streets until he was thirty.

If winging it was this easy, then Ty could handle the rest. Just wait till his Baby Belle heard about this!

"Why are you still here?" Akanthus opened the door, the horns on his helmet clipping on the steel frame as Ty and Sofist straightened their postures. Rather than face more shame, Sofist bit down and pushed past Ty, giving him an opening to take something of the Security Head's. "Secretary Melonie, was it?" Akanthus' attention fell to Ty. "Jaania is pleased with your work."

Nice, nice! He'll deal with Mel when the time comes.

"She expects you to succeed with the rest of the list." Akanthus finished, closing the door again.

Slapping the clipboard on his thigh, Ty groaned until it became a full snarl and almost tossed the clipboard through Akanthus' window.

Grumbling, Ty stormed down the hall, passing the receptionist on his way to an elevator.

"See you later, daddio." Ty tossed his way.

"No." Amadeus stated, continuing his work.

The long elevator ride had actually cleared Ty's mind of the useless worries and needless stress. You can't waste time worrying and doing nothing. At least do something you can handle and get the edge off there.

Besides, that meeting took way longer than Ty thought. Probably the adrenaline making him think a mile a minute but it was already lunch.

"Your mom still pack your lunch, Sam?" One of the security guards shoved Ty's new best friend to the floor, nearly braining him on the edge of an uncaring bystander's cubicle. He didn't have to but the guard stomped on Sam's lunch and headed back to his patrol.

Glum, Sam made sure his squashed sandwich and orange slices stayed in their plastic baggy and tried to pick himself up.

"Is this why you thought I was a cop?" Ty asked, offering to help him.

"Hey you're back!" Sam practically jumped to his feet, stopping short of hopping up and down. "How did it go? You're staying around, right? Thanks for coming by!"

"Yeah, I was waiting for you." Ty said, seating himself back at the desk next to Sam's. The desk's occupant didn't bother at another attempt to make the CEO's secretary move. Ty was higher on the ladder than them and he at least sat in a way that let them see the screen.

"Uh…" Sam stared at Ty and his booster seat, a little flustered at Ty wrapping and arm around their shoulder, hugging them snug to the crook of his shoulder.

"No thoughts on the whole cop thing?" Ty woke him back up.

"I actually used to go to highschool with Vince," He said, sitting down. Ty had to strain to hear him among the ringing phones and beeping photocopy machines. "I was even on the same lacrosse team as him but you know, they didn't want a twig messing up their games. As you can see—"Sam took the flattened, juice drenched sandwich out of his baggy. "—it didn't stop when I got sent back to the books. Still, I don't want to be that guy that causes trouble y'know?" He took a bite of his meal, and it honestly wasn't horrible. "There might be an investigation, we all have to it down in separate rooms to talk again, lots of stuff that'll make work harder." Sam sighed, lighting up a bit when Ty placed a coffee can on his desk.

"Let me take care of that," Ty said, grabbing the plastic baggy. "Jeez, but it's bad enough that you think the police would get involved?"

"I'm fine! Really!" Sam protested, not at all convincing. "He doesn't bother me when I'm at my desk."

An eraser made an arch over the cubicles and struck Sam in the forehead.

"Ouch!" Sam rubbed the spot, realizing the eraser had been covered in wet black marker, and that he had made a big smudge on his face. "Not usually."

"Ahuh," Ty said, taking out the walky he had grabbed off Sofist up on the top floor. "You listening in on this frequency? I know you are and I hope you heard." He said, shoving the walky back into his pocket. Sam was out of his seat, reaching desperately for it but Ty kept him at bay by pressed a tissue to his forehead. Two birds, one ball.

"Why did you do that?" Sam demanded.

"Why did you show me where I needed to go when you knew it was going to make you late?" Ty asked, patting the top of his booster seat's head as thanks for telling him. "Friends watch out for each other."

"But—"

"And I need your help again," Ty cut him off, already diverting Sam's attention. "Have a sip of that coffee, you're going to need to be awake."

"Oh, okay!" He opened the can and downed half of it as Ty continued to talk.

"Me and the person who hired me had a bit of a falling out. Now, it would have been fine if we never saw each other again but they got something I need," Ty drummed his fingers on his booster seat's arm. "I have a list of contacts but no line of contact. Raven over at human relations told me about how the person who hired me, Hansa, stepped down from a top position to help the sprouts grow from the bottom.

"Hansa's really nice, she has an office with Yasimi in the back," Sam struggled to swallow the bitter drink. Ty should have gone for the au lait version. "What happened between you two? I've never seen her get mad before."

"Well, when Hansa told me about how there weren't going to be any problems with me getting hired, I said "as far as I can see!" by accident." Ty shrugged, pretending to be sheepish.

"Wait," Sam paused for a moment, really thinking about what that meant before his eyes went wide. "No, she's not going to be mad about that!"

"But, I'm mad about that! I didn't even know she was blind. The eye scars looked like a fashion statement to me," Ty was lying through his pearly whites, professionally dipping into his guilty sigh. "I need to get access to the right channels to talk to our partners but I don't want to make thinks awkward, y'know?" Leaning back over the arm of the office chair and squishing his booster seat's mouse hand, Ty did another dramatic sigh. "If only I could sneak in, take a look at what I needed, all without having to have that hard talk. I can't believe I'm putting my job on the line cause can't talk right."

Sam scratched his chin.

"I did need some clarification with some of the files I'm handling," Sam nodded. "Maybe I could get her out of the room for a bit."

Ty leaped on to Sam's lap and the office chair slid down the alley of cubicles.

"You're the best!" He squished Sam's cheeks until he began to laugh.

Though Hansa could work just fine without needing to see the screen, her tools all made to fit her needs perfectly, Yasimi was around to catch any bugs that got in the way. She wasn't about to leave Hansa alone with Sam and his one hundred questions fitted into a single sentence.

The two were leaving their office because Sam couldn't understand their advice from just words and Ty watched them from behind the corner down the hall.

"Anyone listening in on this frequency? I actually don't know how these things work." Ty said into the walkie.

It crackled back "Just me now."

So the thing with Vince bullying their clients did matter.

"Great, I think we left off on the wrong foot this morning. The stuff with Vince taken aside, I'm thinking you were all hired because of this specific thing I saw on the news last year."

"Maybe."

What did Sofist mean by "Maybe," of course the Rose hired him because of last year's scary mess.

"Not a lot's happened in a year. They might need a reminder."

With that, Ty put the walkie away and spotted his target: an unassuming guy at a desk that jumped every time his computer made a noise.

Blowing up Sam's plastic baggy, Ty snuck it next to his ear, and slapped his hand down. The loud pop made the little man screech and tore out of his seat.

Some people heard the pop, everyone heard the scream, and everyone jumped to conclusions.

Papers went flying and so did a few keyboards. People stampeded down the aisles of cubicles, trampling each other when they weren't scrambling under their desks. In less than a second, office workers were banging on the elevator doors, rolling down the stairs, or throwing chairs at the bullet-proof windows.

Ty slunk back to the corner of the hall and let the chaos unfolded.

Three floors below, Bradley swiveled his chair to face Sofist.

"We should clear it up."

"No," The edge of Sofist's mouth angled up ever so slightly. "Let the pencil-pushers get some exercise."

Peeking around his corner, Ty spotted Sam running towards him and reached out his arm.

"Hurry! I see them coming!" Ty yelled and Sam ran faster. He jumped into Ty's arms and Vince, who Ty had seen behind him trying to make sense of what was happening, heard the secretary and got his baton out. It sparked with electricity, and he stepped around the corner, swooping down on the nearest movement.

Yasimi caught his wrist just as the alarms and sprinklers went off.

"Why did we stop?" Hansa asked, holding on to Yasimi's shoulder.

"To get one big idiot fired." Yasimi hissed as Vince steadily grew smaller.

"Hey let's all calm down now, it was an accident." Sam tried to soothe the situation and Ty left them to sort it out, slipping past them, and stealing Vince's handcuffs on his way towards Hansa's office.

Good news, there weren't any sprinklers in her office. A safety violation for sure but Ty hadn't counted on someone getting worked up enough to pull the fire alarm.

Bad news, even in a state of emergency, Hansa had taken the care to sign out of her computer.

"Are you kidding?" Ty tugged on his hair.

"Let me take care of that." A nice lady with long black hair slick from the sprinkler water, dressed in a gray pencil skirt she quite hated, nudged beside Ty and began typing in the password.

The sign in screen gave way to rows of shortcuts and the lady jabbed a USB into the port, quickly taking what she needed.

"Mind opening this one?" Ty pointed to a folder holding the list of names he needed.

"Depends on who's asking." The lady glanced at him.

"I'm Ty, I don't plan to be here for more than a few years. Definitely don't plan to remember this."

"I'm Melonie, I don't plan to be here in the next five minutes." Melonie, if that was her real name, opened the folder for Ty.

"Nice meeting you, and thanks for the help." Ty grabbed the papers that were spat out of the printer.

"Same." Melonie said, taking her USB and sprinting out of the room, and out of sight.

On the phone in an office, his office actually, Ty chatted up an old friend while Sam toweled himself off across from his desk.

"That's fourteen out of seventeen names we can hit," Ty and his buddy laughed over the shared realization. "But nah, I won't bother you with all of them. You still need business and I only need one of them to make a big enough contribution and get the other shaking."

"He needed a break from that lady anyways," The other guy laughed. "The appointment's for seven o'clock so I suggest you take the car I'm sending you in ten minutes."

Holding his hand over the receiver, Ty glanced at Sam wringing out his white dress shirt. There was an ink stain on the edges he stuffed into his pants when he had the shirt on. Embarrassed, he smiled back at Ty.

"Sam's going to do great, I promise. See you." Ty hung up and heard a knocking on his door.

"I'll get that," Sam got up and opened the door to Amadeus who stared at him with stone dead eyes. "Is that for Ty?" He noticed the fancy suit on the clothes hanger Amadeus had dangling from his outstretched arm.

"Baby Belle's fast!" Ty exclaimed, waving at Amadeus. The man threw the clothes into Sam's face and slammed the door on him. "And those are for you."

"I can't accept these!" Sam marveled at the gray, on the verge of silver, coat and pants ensemble. "These look like they're worth three times my rent."

"Belle's going to be so happy you said that but if you won't take that as a gift from a friend to a friend, can you accept them as a way to get this super important job done?" Ty clapped his hands together, batting his eyelashes pleadingly at Sam.

Pressing his lips together, Sam wrinkled his nose and struggled to piece the puzzle.

"Are you sending me to meet those super important people on your list?" His breathing sped and he fell back into his chair. "I'm just a regular guy! I'm going to let you down!"

"Uh-uh, you're going to take the sedan down from to their estate, ring their doorbell, and smile at the lady expecting you," Ty leaned over his desk and pinched his cheek. "You know how confident I am in you? I'm not even going to tell you what you're supposed to be doing there. You're going to be yourself and it's going to be the best."

"What?" Sam's head almost exploded.

"My buddy's waiting for you downstairs and he'll take care of you from there." Ty grinned, tapping a tune on his lap.

"H-how much time do I have to pull myself together?" Sam stammered, rubbing his straining neck.

"Oh, five."

"Five?" Same blinked.

"Four."

Positively giggling, Ty chased after Sam on his office chair as he charging down the hall with his new suit. Diving into the elevator, Sam started praying and watched his new friend wave him off.

"You hear that, Amy?" The elevator bell rang as Ty turned to the receptionist, who did his best to keep eye-contact to a bare minimum. "That's the sound of me and you about to share lunch breaks until you retire."

Non-plussed, Amadeus dialed a number into his phone and the landline in Ty's office started to ring. It rang until Amadeus was greeted by voicemail.

"Do you have any idea of what your job entails?" Amadeus asked the voicemail. "Without any softhearts like that Neron character helping you, I'll be happy to see your bloated corpse floating in the water."

Ty gasped, eyes shining.

"You do care, Amy." He blew a kiss towards Amadeus and slid back to his office in search of Neron's phone number, leaving Amy to grieve over his new circumstances.

Sitting cushy in his seat, Ty read over the notes Neron had been kind enough to jot up for him.

"I would be more upset if I didn't think whoever wanted to work directly under Jaania would be less honest than a stranger that sneaked into the building." Neron had said, promising more to come tomorrow.

"So if you don't want us to press assault charges against your family, and let the facts in the civil case leak to the press, I'll be expecting that big donation come tomorrow," Ty talked on his phone, happy with good news for once. "Don't forget to convince all your friends what a good business decision it is to invest in the Rose!"

Hearing thundering footsteps approach his door, Ty hung up and waited.

"AAAAAAAAH!" Sam burst into the office, looking like he got mauled by a pack of dogs without teeth. His suit was disheveled and torn in places that would get him arrested on the street.

He looked to the desk and yelled again.

"Akanthus, Sir! Am I in the wrong office?" Sam coughed, trying to rub the lipstick stains off his neck and cheeks.

"No, he just needed to use my computer." Ty scuttled over on his office chair, giving Sam a big hug while minding the bit marks on his tummy.

"W-why?" Sam scratched his messy hair, still way out of it.

Jaania's second had dozed for a moment, and his helmet had smashed his computer. Was he going to call IT and get it fixed? That meant letting Zadd up here.

"Akanthus, sir?" Sam stammered, but Akanthus said nothing, pouring coffee directly into the opening in his helmet.

"Look at you." Ty opened Sam's shirt when he noticed a bit of marker peeking out from his collar.

"What happened? What did they write on me?" Sam frantically scratched at his clothes.

"You got the wife's number and the daughter's, woof!" Ty patted his back. "Congratulations, Sam! Your love life is now the healthiest in the building."

They thought Akanthus snorted at that but didn't know for sure.

"How about you and me grab a few bottles Friday night, and pop them on a job well done?" Ty winked, tracing a heart around the phone numbers. "I'll call my girlfriend and you can bring your new friends too."

"Secretary Melonie?" Akanthus spoke, shocking Sam out of his fifth emotional crisis of the day. He glanced at Ty quizzically.

"Ty is short for Melonie." Ty shrugged and Akanthus didn't bother looking up from his work.

"If you're done wasting time, get to preparing the event. Catering, decoration, stay-at-home parent things, it doesn't matter. Jaania should have sent you the details along with and a query to which of you account to link to the payroll."

"Would that be by email?" Ty hesitated, gripping Sam by his lapels tightly. "I didn't happen to get new any mail."

"Any contact information errors should be seen to immediately, though I doubt this was a mistake on Jaania's part."

"Why her?" Ty chanced.

"Jaania handles her assistant's information personally."

Dear lord.

No! No, it was still fine! Did Jaania look at Ty when he was in her office? Nah, she and Cosplay King sitting at his desk were too busy secretly funding overseas criminal syndicates.

There was still time to fix this!

"Hang tight, Sam. I'll be right back. Just need to head to the bathroom." Ty left for Jaania's office, knowing she was in a meeting because he was the Secretary.

Sam winced at the door closing behind Ty, too afraid to turn around.

"Why does it smell like candles and olive oil in here?" Akanthus tsked as Sam quickly wiped the remains off his skin.

Already at the door to Jaania's office, Ty was ready to get into her computer and change all of Melonie's contact information, banking info, and resume to his own. Miss. Miss Me would think she had hallucinated the entire mix up before Ty got several years in jail for identity fraud.

Evidently, Ty wasn't the only one prying at Jaania's schedule for nefarious reasons.

"Who the hell are you?" Ty gaped at the man snooping through Jaania's computer, her spare glasses resting on his nose. "Wait a minute, aren't you that Theano guy?"

Rolling with his mistake, Theano sat back in the CEO's chair and leaned his elbows on the arms.

"That's CEO Theano to you." He pointed a pen at Ty.

"You know what? I don't have time for this." Ty grabbed the back of the office chair Theano had stolen and shoved it towards the nearest door.

"That's a closet! Don't you dare-" Shoving the pompous man into the closet stuffed full of designer coats Jaania probably wore when she stepped on her enemies, Ty used the stolen cuffs to tangle around the closet's handles.

"Welcome back, Jaania!" Ty pretended Miss. Miss Me had returned and it worked like a charm. Theano clammed up and Ty sprinted back out the hall to get another chair.

Changing the info could be done during the next meeting. Jaania returning and not finding her chair was missing sounded like an immediate slight that would get Ty tossed out the window, one limb at a time. Any slight, really.

"Thanks, Amy!" Ty grabbed Amadeus' chair right as he was about to sit down. The man went legs up and Ty was so sad he couldn't stick around to laugh, even if it meant also getting tossed out of the window, one limb at a time.

He rode the chair all the way back into Jaania's office, slid it behind her desk, and Jaania leaned over the backrest.

"Take a seat, won't you?" The CEO motioned to the chair, which might as well have been electric, on the other side of her desk.

His entire upper body drained of blood, Ty quietly stepped around the desk and slumped in the stiff wooden grave.

"Perhaps I should say that my employees are all idiots who can't see a screaming lie when it's dancing in front of their noses," Jaania said, sitting in her new chair and deciding she quite liked it. Behind Ty's head, the CEO saw Amadeus dejectedly close the door to her office. "But they aren't idiots. Not all of them."

Saying nothing, not even breathing, Ty cradled his head in his hands.

"With our partners secured for sponsoring the convention, I suppose this entire debacle wasn't a loss." Jaania reached for her phone and the sounds of her finger dialing up a number made Ty deaf.

Time stretched painfully on as Ty wondered how much his parents were going to laugh at him when he used his one phone call from his new cell. He wondered how hard Belle was going to dump him and how loudly she would say that she hated him. Maybe he should punch out his ear drums in advance.

"I'd like to enquire about the work experience program at your institution. I understand that he's in his senior year?" Jaania's words suddenly broke through Ty's despaired stupor. "Weekdays after school from four to two should suffice."

"As in four in the afternoon to two in the morning?" Ty raised his head and Jaania covered the receiver.

"Would you rather I call the authorities?"

Fair.

Once the arrangements were finalized, Jaania considered Ty like a lion considered a hogtied gazelle.

"If I let you go, I lose a potential for a better than average handler of my mundane affairs. You, on the other hand, won't leave the building. Do we have an understanding?"

Swallowing, Ty nodded.

"What's next on my schedule?" Jaania asked.

"The last secretary made this appointment with Amityvale Pharmaceuticals, starting in ten minutes."

"Your advice?"

Letting out a deep breath, Ty said "Don't waste energy growing flowers on graves."

Seeing that her glasses were missing, Jaania opted for white-framed sunglasses.

"I'll be skipping to visiting the labs. Get the necessary documents on the shelf and follow me there." Standing, Jaania's heels clicked on the marble as she headed out to the hall. The moment Ty was able to breathe again, he did five laps around the room.

Whistling a jaunty tune, he grabbed the files from their respective boxes, and listened to the banging coming from inside the closet.

"I don't have the keys, but since I'm having such a charitable day, I'll tell security you had an accident and handcuffed the closet shut behind you. I'm sure they saw you on their cameras."

"When security finds me, I'll—"Theano paused. "Right. Security."

With that taken care of, Ty thought of the opportunities. So many of them! Ones in the building, and the ones Melonie probably had waiting for him too. Sure, a lot of them could hit literal dead ends, but Ty could keep walking.

"Sam!" He called to his waiting friend, stepping out of the office and into the garden.