Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own The Lunar Chronicles.
Can anyone else see how many AUs you can do with these nine main characters? There are so many possibilities! For now—Office AU!
Cinder stopped stalk-stiff when she found the paper; her eyes scanned the words written across it in simple, plain handwriting: 'Meet me after work outside the landing bay. I have a surprise for you, sweetheart - ;)'.
"Cinder, what is that?" Cinder gasped at Iko's innocent inquiry, surprised; she bumped her head on the top of the desk she was under; she groaned and rubbed her head as she crawled out.
"A piece of trash. It's—it's nothing to freak out about, Iko," Cinder said. She crumpled the paper up in her prosthetic left hand and threw it into the office's trash can by Scarlet's desk. She ducked her head to continue working on Cress's malfunctioning computer monitor.
"Then why are you stammering?" Iko wanted to know. She crossed the office floor with her long legs, but wasn't quick enough. Scarlet put aside the invoices she was logging into the computer and picked the paper up first. She unwrinkled it as Iko said, "If you could blush, Cinder, you would've."
"What is it?" Cress asked timidly. Long blonde hair tucked away in a braid, she stood by the water cooler next to the breakroom door. It dwarfed her. The little water bottle she kept refilling trembled in her hand.
Scarlet's red curls bounced around her shoulders as she leaned back in her swivel chair. A smirk crossed her face. She bumped against her desk to turn her swivel chair so the back of it faced the rest of the office.
"Hey! No fair, Scar!" Iko's quick arms turned her back to face them. Cinder peeked out from behind the desk and sighed at Iko. Cress looked on wonderingly.
Scarlet cleared her throat and said in her French accent, "It's a mystery note from a secret admirer. It says, 'Meet me after work outside the landing bay. I have a surprise for you, sweetheart - winky-face'." Scarlet's mischievous eyes looked up from beneath her hair and hoodie and said, waving the letter, "Okay, whose note is this?"
Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Iko all looked at each other. Eyes raised, arms folded, but no one stepped forward. So, they all did at once: "It's mine!" Then eyes grew accusatory. "It's mine!" Scarlet and Iko snarled at each other.
"It was found near my desk, though," Cress pointed out hesitantly. The look Scarlet threw her made her snap her lips shut in a tight line.
"Yes, but I . . . I found it," Cinder said, sighing. She sat back on her butt, her legs at angles.
Just then Winter, the big boss's stepdaughter, came out from her meeting with the office manager, Kai. Her kinky curls bounced as she looked at the tension-filled room. "What happened?" she asked curiously.
Cinder sighed and wrapped her arms around her legs. "I found a note from someone's secret admirer. It isn't signed or addressed to anyone but someone called 'sweetheart', though. It's not much to go on. It could be from any of the guys to any of us girls." She sighed. Kai, the branch's manager, was finishing up a computer conference at his desk. She could see him through his partly opened door. As Iko would say, he looked 'so cute.'
If Cinder could blush (she was usually so stoic and cool-faced), she would've.
"Oh, so it could be for me?" Winter wondered.
Iko snatched the letter from Scarlet, making Scarlet jump up from her swivel chair. "Hey, Iko! That is mine!"
"What's to say it isn't mine? From a truly secret admirer? Who says I couldn't be the recipient?" Iko said dramatically. Always the romantic, always wanting romance, Cinder knew Iko hoped above all hopes that someone had written her a wonderful secret note.
"Because it's obvious that no one in the office has a crush on you," Winter said unhelpfully.
Cinder shot Winter a look; that was not the thing to say to her sensitive best friend.
Iko rolled her eyes and handed the note to Scarlet. "I know." She pointed at Scarlet: "It's amazing that Wolf gets anything done; he spends half of his time on the clock staring at her." Scarlet's face took on a blush-y expression as Iko teased, "You know that basket of garden vegetables you brought in from your grandmother's farm this morning? I got tomatoes. He came by and asked to trade all his cucumbers for all my tomatoes. How could I say no to that guy? He's so gone for you; it's obvious what his favorite color is." Scarlet played with one of her red hoodie's strings and didn't look Iko in the eye.
Iko then pointed a finger at Cress, who shrunk against a fake plant. "Thorne the truck driver flirts with all the girls, but I know the way he looks at you, honey. He looks at you like you're the moon."
Cress perked up a little, blossomed a little more. Could . . . could this be true? She knew that if anyone paid her the slightest of attention, they could see how in love with him she was. All the times he came in from an all-night drive, with stubble and an easiness to his body and attitude, and got coffee from the little coffeemaker in the break room, she'd watched him longingly from her little secluded desk. Her first priority each morning when she came into the office was to hang up her coat and then make a fresh pot of coffee, to make sure it was ready for when he came in.
Iko smiled encouragingly at her. "Maybe he's noticed what's been obvious to everyone else for a long time."
Cress burned crimson and Iko continued. She looked at Cinder with mischievous eyes. Cinder shook her head, as if to say, "Don't you dare, Iko. I'm not up for this."
Iko shrugged, grinning. "I'm just saying, Cinder." She waggled her eyebrows and Cinder, groaning, facepalmed. Winter, Scarlet, and Cress exchanged looks of concern and confusion.
"Is there a person crushing on Cinder we should worry about?" Scarlet asked. She held up four fingers. "There are only four guys here, and we've knocked Thorne and Wolf"—she smiled—"out of the scenario, so that leaves Jacin and Kai."
Cinder scoffed. "Jacin can barely stand my presence. Why is he even an option?" As a matter of fact, Jacin could barely stand any of them. Except Winter, of course. He was her shadow, in that way.
Scarlet sat up in her swivel chair, "Ah-ha-ing!" as she pointed an accusatory finger at Cinder. "You've left Kai as the only option! Cinder!"
Cinder skulked under the desk again.
"Now, if we could just hire a nice looking guy for me, we'd all be paired off. He should totally be a security guard; a man in uniform, being all protective and strong. . ." Iko said, sighing dreamily.
"Iko, what have we told you about saying your daydreams out loud?" Scarlet called.
Iko stopped and sighed. "To not to." She sighed and regarded the note. "So, there are eight people involved here, one of whom is not me. There are four boys who could've written this, and four girls who could've received it. If we can find the guy who wrote this, we'll know who the girl is."
"This sounds like a mystery that needs to be solved," Scarlet said. She sat up, willing to help.
Cinder wanted to join them, because her curiosity was stronger than she wanted it to be, but she didn't want to find out that the guy wasn't Kai . . . or was. She finished up on Cress's computer and plugged it in. She stood up and said, hands on her hips, "Your computer's good to go, Cress."
Cress looked sad, like she'd a moment before summed up her courage to join Iko and Scarlet on their adventure, and now lost that courage. She gulped and sat down. She thanked Cinder and tried to set about recording shipments to their various destinations, but her longing eyes kept flickering over to where Iko and Scarlet were talking.
"You're the branch's accountant. You've got to have seen one of the guys endorse their paycheck sometime. Whose handwriting is this?" Iko asked. She sat on Scarlet's desk, her long legs dangling.
Scarlet dismissed the idea immediately. "Every time anyone has endorsed a check in front of me, it's always been in some illegible signature. Nobody actually writes letters like that."
"Okay, fine." Iko raised her voice. "Has anyone seen any of the guys writing anything lately?"
"Kai's always writing at his desk," Cress pointed out meekly.
"Who says the guy who wrote this wrote this at work? Maybe he brought it with him and it slipped out of his pocket," Scarlet pointed out.
"Okay." Iko sounded sulky, like she didn't appreciate how Scarlet kept shooting down her ideas. Hands on her hips, she cocked her head and said, "Have any bright ideas as to who it could be, then, Scarlet?"
"Yes. The note was written by Kai, Wolf, Thorne," Scarlet said, counting off her fingers, "and, to leave no stone unturned, or Jacin, however improbable that is." Jacin was the personal bodyguard of Winter. Her stepmother, Levana, owned the company; it was common knowledge that while she took 'care' of her stepdaughter, Levana disliked the girl immensely. Maybe it was because she was the real owner of her father's company. Maybe because she was the sole heir. Maybe because she was prettier. Anyway, because she didn't want crazy Winter wandering off and Levana surely didn't have the time to babysit her stepdaughter, so she paid a bodyguard to always be with her.
Jacin was an interesting addition to the office. He only came in when Winter wandered in when she felt social and curious. He was not very social or curious, ever. He looked down on them all (literally. He dwarfed everyone, even long, skinny Kai); he communicated mostly in grunts and a tightened jaw. He didn't have any great patience with any of the seven employees of this branch. Which just made everyone cock their heads in confusion and squint when they looked at him with Winter. He looked at crazy Winter, the girl who made everyone else eventually want to pull their hair and kick her out, with the greatest reserve of patience in the world; sure, she got her own share of his blunt snips, but he never meant them cruelly. He looked at her like she was the night sky.
Cinder scoffed and couldn't help saying to Scarlet, "You can cross out Jacin entirely. He can barely speak nicely to Winter, never mind be able to write a romantic note."
"Maybe he really has a heart of gold, and it's just hard for him to really make his feelings known. Maybe he really loves her truly and honestly, and he was going to tell her by the bay," Iko said, gasping from excitement. She put a hand to her heart and dramatically lay back over Scarlet's desk. Scarlet kicked herself away from the desk, her swivel chair swerving away. She scowled at Iko crushing all her papers and invoices. "Accounting's hard enough without you lying on all my stuff!" Scarlet scowled, sticking her hands into her big red hoodie pocket.
"Iko's right, though," Cress said waveringly. She cleared her throat, once she realized Scarlet, Iko, and Cinder were looking at her. "Maybe it is a note written by someone who wants to confess his true feelings to a girl. Maybe it's hard for him to do it normally."
Scarlet and Cinder looked at each other with a sigh, looking like two older sisters knowing the truth of a younger sister's words. They all knew Cress was alluding to Thorne. They all knew she was being a little too optimistic. Didn't she know Thorne? Swashbuckling, chuckling, grinning, flirting? Never serious, or sincere, or truthful, or respectable? Cress always liked reading fairytales, and she was often caught daydreaming over her desk. She was so childish, caught up in wondering fantasies. Sure, Thorne might like her, but he would never be the hero she thought him to be.
Winter popped her head out of the office's breakroom. She'd raided the fridge, showing off her find with apple pastry crumbs on her fingers. "What have I missed? Have we found the culprit yet?" she asked, before licking her fingers and pulling up a swivel chair to Scarlet's desk. She made no comment on Iko caught up with all the feels.
Scarlet poked a hand out; her fingertips pressed into her palm, her thumb stuck out. "Wolf; he is high on the list of suspects."
"You're just saying that because he's your not-boyfriend," Winter said matter-of-factly.
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. "Oh yes, and the evidence of his habit of side-stepping romance but trying to make an effort totally don't support the theory in the slightest. Yes, I am entirely biased. We should just throw him out of the ring entirely."
"Scarlet," Cress said in a pleading voice.
Scarlet sighed and stuck out her index finger, giving Winter a look; Winter hummed, and didn't notice her. "Two, Jacin. We're thinking he's finally going to confess that he has a crush on you."
Winter didn't look surprised or shocked or excited; she merely played with a rose plant on Scarlet's desk and said in her soft voice, "Oh, it's about time."
Cress had taken a foldable chair they kept around the main board room and sat near the desk. She drew her arms around her bent knees and said, "So . . . is Thorne completely out of the picture?"
Cinder sighed; her hand gripped the handle of her toolbox. She wanted nothing more than to escape this meticulous nitpicking of romantic relationships and go fix the brakes on delivery truck #147. But instead she grunted, setting her toolbox down, and sat next to Iko. She gave Iko a disapproving look, which Iko ignored by turning her head and sighing more dramatically. Cinder sighed again and looked at Cress. "Sorry, Cress. Thorne and I are practically siblings. I know him. He's not going to break down to let his true feelings show." She knew why he was like that. She was like that. Takes one to know one.
Cress sighed and scrunched into herself.
"So, is that it? Are we leaving out Cinder's boyfriend?" Winter inquired innocently.
Cinder facepalmed.
Scarlet shrugged. "Kai hasn't been counted in or out. Cinder, have we any good reason to think he has something to tell you?"
"I don't know," Cinder groaned.
Iko rose like a zombie from the grave and looked at Cinder with mischievous eyes. "Yes, Cinder." She propped her head on her fists and blinked, smiling. "Tell us everything about you and the handsome office manager."
Now it was Cinder withering under the eyes of everyone else. She stood up; "We're on the clock. I have a truck to fix."
"Maybe I should call in Kai to make us all go back to work. I bet you'd like that, Cinder," Iko said sweetly, giggling.
Cinder wished she was far away from the confines of this cozy office. She wanted to be out in the garage, with the smell of grime and the slick blackness of oil. She felt so incredibly uncomfortable sharing girl-talk with the rest of the girls in the office.
"She's not saying no!" Iko squeed. "Kai, KAI, COME IN HERE!"
Cinder groaned and made for the door, but Iko blocked it.
"Nobody's leaving until we have an answer," Scarlet said, finally. She pulled herself back to her desk and picked up the phone. "We need blunt truth. This is getting out of hand."
"But you have to admit, the mystery's been fun," Iko said teasingly.
"Yes, it has," Winter said in her soft voice.
Kai peeked his head out of his office with a confused look on his face. "Did someone call for me?" he wondered.
Scarlet nodded while Iko waved Cinder's hand, to Cinder's great annoyance. "We're calling an emergency staff meeting. There's confusion in the office we need to clear up," Scarlet said in a business-like voice.
Kai's eyebrows wrinkled. "Um, okay. Is it a business matter?"
Scarlet waved a hand as she waited for the phone to reach the garage. "Oh, no. We just need to clear something up." She reached the garage and everyone heard her say, "Hey, Thorne. Okay, that was workplace harassment. Calm yourself down, Mr. Flirt, or I will personally save HR a trip and deal with you myself. Yeah, believe it. I'm calling to say that you and Wolf have to come in for a last-minute staff meeting. No, this is not to introduce everyone to new workplace uniform policies. And no, it's not to go over the suggestions in the suggestion box. Kai and I got rid of that after we read the first three innuendos in it. Thorne, just be up here in three minutes, okay?" Scarlet slammed the phone down and hid her head in her folded arms. "How does he not get punched every day?"
"Excellent question," Cinder muttered.
Kai, startled, just noticed Cinder. She saw him looking at her with a wondering look, and she cleared her throat and stoically ignored him the best she could, which was harder to do than she thought.
"Winter, call Jacin," Scarlet said. She stood up and led the rest of them, silently, into the meeting room. Winter emerged last, Jacin behind her. He looked over her head into the hastily assembled meeting with no small amount of distaste. Still, he entered the room. He didn't take a seat, though. He pulled a chair out for Winter, then stood against the wall behind her.
Thorne and Wolf were the last to enter. Thorne opened the door and grinned at everyone's faces. "Well, well, this looks like fun." He sat next to Cress, barely noticed her immediate blush, and said, hands clasped on the table, "Now, I bet you're all wondering why I called you here today."
"Zip it, Thorne," Scarlet said briskly. She looked at Wolf; he skulked at the doorway, obviously not wanting to join them. She waved him in with a firm but gentle voice. "Come on, Wolf."
He walked in quickly, keeping his head down. He sat immediately down by Scarlet and looked at her only.
Scarlet stood up and held up the letter. "I have called an emergency staff meeting because this note was found by Cress's desk today. It's signed by no one and has no recipient's name. It's been all that all five of us girls have been able to talk about for the last half hour. This is slowing down work productivity. So," and she looked Kai, Thorne, Jacin, and lastly, Wolf, in the eye, "Enlighten us, gentlemen. Who wrote this note, and who is it for?"
"Not me," Thorne said immediately, pushing his chair away from the table. "I don't write notes. But," and he pulled himself back into the table, making Cress breathe very abnormally, "What does the note say?" He wiggled his eyebrows. "Is it NSFW?"
Scarlet pinned the note under her hand. "Like we're telling you, Thorne." She cast eyes around the table. "Boss?"
Kai, seated at the foot of the table, looked astonished that this was the issue being discussed. "Um, no. It wasn't me." He looked at Cinder, then cleared his throat and said to the board, "I try to be truthful and upfront about requests and concerns. I ask the person directly. I don't write notes." He looked at Cinder hesitantly when he finished, and said quietly, "Cinder, can I talk to you after this?"
Cinder wished she couldn't feel the surprised and excited eyes of everyone else around the table on her. "Sure," she finally said.
"Okay. Jacin?" Everyone especially noticed that Scarlet left Wolf for last.
"I didn't write it," Jacin said bluntly. "It's stupid that you guys thought I ever did."
"One can have their hopes for you," Winter said dreamily, giving him shining eyes.
Jacin grunted and said, "That's all they are. Hopes."
That said, Winter still turned back to the meeting with those shining eyes.
This meant that all eyes focused on Wolf. He shrank into himself even more than usual, and could look no one in the eye. Except Scarlet.
"That leaves only one," Iko said, because Scarlet couldn't.
Wolf and Scarlet looked at each other like they were the only people in the room. Iko, therefore, leapt to her feet and, clapping her hands, said, "Okay, meeting over. Everyone dismissed." She hurried around the table, pulling out chairs and urging people out. "Come on, guys. Jacin, go drive Winter home. Kai, call Cinder into your office to 'talk to her.' Thorne, go sit on Cress's desk and flirt with her." Everyone except Thorne and Jacin blushed until the only people left were Iko, Scarlet, and Wolf. Iko, hand on the doorknob, smiled at them. "Have fun." She winked and closed the door securely behind her.
Scarlet looked at her hands. Wolf fidgeted in his seat. Time passed. Then suddenly she burst, "Where'd the 'sweetheart' come from? And the winky face?"
Wolf sighed, but admitted, "Sweetheart's a nickname I call you inside my head. And the winky face is me imitating your sass."
"Oh." It was all that Scarlet could say. "So," she said after a moment, "what did you want to talk to me about? Work? Your paycheck? If I have any more garden tomatoes to bring to work?"
Suddenly Wolf stood up from his chair and knelt in front of her, as if her words were a trigger. "None of those. Though, your tomatoes are great," he admitted.
"Then what? You like me for more than my produce?" Scarlet asked, amused.
"Yes. A thousand times yes," Wolf said seriously.
Scarlet could only open and close her mouth before saying, "I like you, too."
"How long have they been in there?" Cinder wondered.
"Too long. You know what that means," Thorne said, wiggling his eyebrows at Cress. Despite herself, Cress giggled.
"This is so sweet. He likes funny, caring Scarlet," Winter whispered.
"Yes, that's great. Can we go now?" Jacin growled.
"Sssssh!" Iko was on her knees, her ear pressed against the door. "How am I supposed to hear the 'I love you's' getting passed between them if everyone's talking?!"
"I'm not talking," Kai pointed out.
Cinder and Iko gave him a look.
Suddenly the board room door swung open, and Iko squealed as she fell forward. Scarlet and Wolf, holding hands, looked with some horror on all their co-workers standing right outside the door with embarrassed faces.
"Do I want to know how long you guys have been waiting here?" Scarlet scowled.
Iko sat up straight and grinned, "Nope, not really. But seriously, what did you expect? Everyone loves to hear about a little office romance."
*smh* What am I gonna do with these folks? :P
Thanks for reading! Review?