A/N: Apologies for the absence — if you don't follow my other fics, to cut a very long story short I was made homeless towards the end of October so I've been contending with everything that goes with that. I'm okay! I'm safe, I'm very lucky to have a very good support system. Currently living in a friend's spare room, which means I can finally write properly again, and that is the truly important thing B) still can't promise too much stability with updates until I'm back on my feet, though. However, the next one is already underway!
Zena did not sleep that night…but even with that fact taken into consideration, it wasn't half as bad as she'd feared going into it. Not after inspiration struck, at least - after that, her sleep deprivation had been a very willing thing riddled with genuine enthusiasm for what she worked on, rather than being driven by an intense desire to stay alive with her face intact. Although, admittedly, that still played a rather large role. Once she got her idea, she slipped easily into that fabled flow state that any sort of creative thrived in, worries and stresses melted away as she focused on designing - sketching, then re-sketching, then detailing, inking, colouring, and adding so many annotations that she might as well have tried to cram an essay onto the page around the sketches.
On more than one occasion she'd peeled herself away from her desk, fully intending to grab at least a handful of hours of sleep before it was time to return to work, only for another idea to flit across her mind the moment her head touched her pillow, and then she was up and sketching again - adding a detail to a sleeve cuff here, or adding a touch of finesse to a silhouette there. By the time the gloomy, muted sunrise began to creep through her curtains, she was exhausted, but she was no longer in fear for her life. If Pavi Largo said that he didn't like what she'd come up with, he was either an idiot or a liar. The latter was entirely possible, but she wasn't as quick to believe the former as some of his critics were.
Packing up her sketches with a degree of care that would've been more fitting had they contained nuclear launch codes, she got dressed and even took the care to apply a careful layer of winged liner to try and disguise how red her eyes were. It wasn't something she usually bothered with, not wanting to attract attention from Pavi who had a reputation for chasing after anything with a pulse, but that ship had well and truly sailed. All throughout her bus ride to work, she hugged her portfolio to her chest, and didn't physically unclench her entire body until her sketches were stored beneath her desk, safely away from any secret fashion-hating brigands waiting to leap from the shadows and destroy her work.
Then, of course, she had to contend with the flash of panic that shot through her chest every time the elevator to her office pinged to herald a visitor - especially when it didn't coincide with an appointment that was due. After all, there were only three (or perhaps four, taking into account Mr Largo's head Repo Man) people who would be willing to turn up to this office unless scheduled or invited. As if sensing her distress and taking some sort of sick pleasure in drawing it out - for the elevator pinged to herald the first unprompted visitor fairly early on in the day, revealing Luigi. He strode past her with a face like sour milk, and didn't spare her a glance. He left with just as little incident, and for that she thanked the universe.
A few hours later it was Amber - just before midday, it was a little early for her to be awake, but Zena almost slumped into her chair from sheer relief when she strutted through. Amber had no reason to quarrel with her, and she was just about the only of the three who probably wouldn't pick a fight anyway in spite of that. Not unless she was in the throes of withdrawals. Judging by the glassy, glazed-over look in her eyes as she breezed through, she was most decidedly not.
Once her lunch break had been and gone, Zena began to slowly allow herself to relax. In part because working for the man who was arguably the most successful, and therefore the most busy, didn't leave much room for thought about anything that wasn't related to whatever task was at hand, but also because in the brief moments that her thoughts could stray, she stubbornly convinced herself that she was panicking over nothing. Even if Pavi did deign to drop by two days in a row (which wouldn't be too unusual, what with the Largo siblings' bids to be their father's favourite only heating up as their patriarch grew older), who was to say he'd even bother with her? Hell, if he had his mirror to hand or a Gentern on either arm, he'd probably be too distracted to even remember that he'd requested - or, well, demanded - a sketch from her in the first place.
In the end, he arrived an hour before the end of her working day. Just as she convinced herself he wouldn't be showing his shiny new face at all, the elevator dinged, and she had the time it took for it to reach her floor to collect herself and wait. There was nobody else it could be at this point. But, despite her anxiety and despite her dread, there was something there she didn't expect at all. Not quite excitement, never that, but…anticipation? She was proud of her work the previous night - and of her work in general, truth be told. What she wasn't used to was having it seen. Her mother caught glimpses of them every so often and would make a point of scoffing or going out of her way to brush them off, but that was about it. There was something thrilling about having it now be recognised, and by one of the most influential men in the world, no less.
Admittedly, she wasn't too pleased about having such things actually mean anything to her. It only took a week of working for the Largos to see the hysteria and sycophancy that surrounded them for what it was - a farce. But there was a cold, hard logic to it. Her own ego aside, Pavi Largo's approval could open doors for her. She was sure he was hoping it might open other things, and that was the dangerous downside here, for she wasn't sure he was used to hearing the word 'no'. Nor heeding it. But, the fact remained that he could open doors, and those doors would lead to more money, and more money would lead to a much swifter exit on the road to a new life.
It was a surprisingly logical decision when she brought it down to the bare bones of the situation. Okay, it was far too dangerous to be something that she would've purposely schemed up or thought up of her own accord, but that ship had sailed. There was no avoiding it now, but there was a potential to make it work. She'd already weighed up the risks of trying to stay alive around one Largo in order to get the big fat paycheck that would come with it, so what was the difference here? Well, the difference was that Pavi was a bit more unpredictable, but there was no avoiding that now.
The elevator doors slid open and she allowed herself only the most professional of glances towards them as they revealed Pavi, now once again sporting his usual Genterns - one on each arm. Continuing to fill in paperwork only so she wouldn't nervously fall still, she watched in her peripherals as he swanned by without sparing her so much as a 'good morning', left his chaperones by the doors to his father's private elevator, and headed on up.
Zena didn't dare exhale for the same reason that the Genterns remained dutifully silent rather than chit-chatting with one another. She had a feeling they were both nervous that the other party would hear or see something unfavourable and report back. It was best not to relax until one or two full streets away from the GeneCo tower, just as a rule of thumb. She was sure they knew that just as well as she did. They remained in silence in the gloomy office, other than general small-talk between the two Genterns about mundane matters like the time their shifts ended, and what they planned on doing afterwards.
Pavi's visit to his father was a flying one, though, for scarcely ten minutes passed before the elevator pinged again, and then he was back. The Genterns resumed their bubbly flirtations, and he breezed past her desk again without incident. The only indication Zena had that yesterday had happened at all was when he entered the elevator, spun around, caught her eye, and offered her a wink and the barest hints of a smirk just before the doors slid shut. If she wasn't mistaken, he seemed to take a special kind of amusement in the way she offered no reaction at all.
With that momentous encounter over, and fully without incident at that, Zena finally relaxed. Maybe he was more reasonable than she thought. Although part of her monster-sized ego was somewhat bruised that he hadn't sprinted towards her and demanded to see any sketches that she might have, she knew that for what it was - idiocy. It was better this way. It proved he wasn't as fervently interested as she'd first feared, and perhaps even a little more reasonable than she'd initially thought - and that part was the real surprise here.
So her shoulders finally lowered from their permanent hunch, and by the time she was shrugging on her coat and collecting up her belongings to leave for the day, she was already looking forward to an early night in her cosiest pyjamas. Until a car began following her down the street as she turned out of the GeneCo tower in the direction of the bus stop. It was a gleaming black stretched Escalade, so there was no doubt in her mind as to who was in it. It was like he could sense when she'd let her guard down, damn him.
When it showed no sign of either stopping or speeding up and driving off, Zena slowed. Then, when she heard the electronic whirr of the window being lowered, she had no choice but to stop if she did not want to risk being rude. There was, however, time between her realisation and resignation for her to school her face into a carefully blank expression.
"Can I help you, Mr Largo, sir?" she asked.
At the mix of boredom and lack of amusement on his face, she held back a sigh and added a quiet "Pavi" to the end of her question. And then the door opened, and her heart just about dropped down to her ass.
"Join me, signorina," he offered a bright and sunny smile that might've been charming had it not come from behind a dead person's lips.
Zena faltered.
"Please," he added, which seemed more like an outright dare to disobey.
Thinning her lips because she dared not hang her head, she faltered and made one last attempt to slip away.
"I'm going to miss my bus," she said.
He laughed - one that was much too high-pitched and empty to sound at all genuine.
"You won't need a bus - I shall...escort-a you home."
"It's too far for you to take me," she tried to revert to some false sense of guilt.
"Heathcliffe Close is hardly any distance at all," he waved a hand, still leaning down a little so he could meet her gaze.
Or maybe it was so he'd be able to see the horror on her face as he rattled off the name of her very street. So...he'd been digging for more than her name when he'd been rooting through her desk. While her face remained blank, she could feel the blood draining from it, her cheeks going cold. Any earlier, vague sense of flattery she might've felt over his interest suddenly felt utterly absurd.
This time he didn't urge her to get in again, only sat watching her silently. Expectantly. Either he knew that there was no need, was used to being obeyed in most things, or that what he'd just said was threat enough - whether it was meant as such or not. Slowly exhaling, she curled her fingers tightly around the edges of the portfolio she held closely to her chest, and then she slipped into the car.