Chapter Text
Meg Masters entered her boss’ office ready for a fight.
She wanted to be promoted.
She wanted a position of power in the company. Preferably, not in Human Resources, where she has been stuck for the last years.
She would rather go back to the more aggressive branches, like Selling, where she had been before, and where she heard there was to be vacant position any moment, thanks to a retirement.
Meg had always worked under Mister Crowley, and she was sick of him.
He appeared from nowhere with his cool manners and foreign accent, started small but quickly proved to be brilliant. When he won the position as head of Selling, she latched onto him as Main Assistant, believing it was a matter of time for them to go up in the food chain.
However, his methods clashed with the rest of the managers: he talked about integrity, and Hell’s Bells had never been a company specially known as trustworthy. Besides, the firm had started as a family business, many of the founders were still alive and kicking, and he was seen as an intruder.
So, soon he had to choose between being constantly attacked by the senior guys (and gals – Abaddon was especially fierce and demeaning) or accept a relatively off-center position.
That’s how he ended up in Human Resources, taking Meg down with him.
(Well, it was not exactly down, but she liked to think of it that way. It gave fuel to her hatred.)
To her despair, Crowley soon proved to be too damn good at hiring and managing people – as good as he had been in Selling, in fact.
All that jazz about integrity gave results: he was given a new secretary (chosen by himself personally after exhausting interviews) to get some work off Meg’s hands and a large office with a pretty view of the city.
He was obviously comfortable.
It meant he was not going anywhere any soon.
Meg only stood a chance of finding her own path or taking his place if he died.
And she was not ready to murder anyone.
(Yet.)
Even if she hated him with all her heart.
It was not worth it.
(Yet.)
Well, Crowley had called her to his office, the position in Selling was open and she definitively was ready to fight for a chance to break free.
xxx
Meg glared just out of habit at the annoying red-haired secretary when the woman closed the door but stayed in the room with them.
If Crowley wanted to brag about a position Meg would never get if it depended on him, she would finally have a real reason to confront the man openly.
Her blood boiled in anticipation.
It was not their style, but maybe they had decided to mock her.
Some yelling would feel great. Meg firmly believed she was entitled to satisfaction, now and then, once life had put her in what was currently a minor extension of an otherwise quite big business, dealing day in and day out with stupid people.
‘Miss Masters’, her boss greeted her coldly, ‘Please, have a seat’.
Meg sat in the chair in front of his desk.
Crowley was all clad in black, as always, and sporting a gray tie.
The familiar combination – he always wore layers of black, and his ties were always gray or silver, with red making an appearance just when he needed to impress – was enough to irritate her.
His dark hair and pale skin fed her angriness even more.
The sight of his smooth face and serious greenish eyes always managed to pull out her darkest scowl.
She could feel her own eyes blackening in hatred.
‘Miss Bradbury here has some papers for you to read and, hopefully to all of us, sign’, the boss stated, and the redhead approached with what seemed a contract in her hands, ‘I’ll explain briefly what these are aimed at, and I expect an immediate answer from you’.
Meg frowned, took the material and started reading it.
It was a transference deal.
To the exact position she had wanted, in Selling.
Meg stared at her current boss’ face, ‘What is this supposed to mean?’
‘Alastair’s right arm retired, as the old crone – and I mean Alistair – has been announcing for some time. I know you want a change. I can practically feel the daggers your eyes throw at me, and how you wish they were not metaphorical’.
His words seemed teasing, but his general attitude was as humorless as always.
Meg never knew if he was mocking her or just being completely honest, so unemotional were his manners.
At least there was one thing to keep her from hating him completely – his sick sense of humor, or whatever was that thing he usually did.
‘I have some influence’, he resumed speaking, ‘I mentioned, to the right people, details of your work and how invested and competent you are. I may have called you obsessive and relentless…’, he pursed his lips and looked away, as if trying to remember if he had done that, and then focused back on her, ‘Alistair eventually decided to check on you and found out he liked what he saw’, he indicated the leaves in her hands with a lazy gesture, ‘So, you put your name in those and you’re ready for a new life as soon as you walk out that door’.
‘What’s the catch?’, Meg squinted, ‘You know I don’t like you. Isn’t your politics ‘friends close and enemies closer’, anymore?’, she scoffed, ‘Not that you have any friends, besides, maybe, the looser standing right there’.
Charlie just rolled her eyes, used to the brunette’s ill words.
Crowley glanced at his secretary to asses her reaction and, seeing she was not affected, faced Meg again, ‘You’re poisonous. Keeping you close and unsatisfied is not worth the trouble’.
Meg could feel her own nostrils flaring.
Her body was trying to detect the trap as if it would have some weird scent.
‘However, you’re right’, Crowley sat back on his chair, adjusting his already perfect tie, ‘There’s an agenda to your transference’.
‘I’m listening’.
The man in black breathed deeply, his eyes wandering by the room in an annoying calculating way while he ordered his thoughts and chose carefully his next words.
He was famous by his appearance of calmness and complete control.
No one has ever seen him stammer or act surprised. No matter what happened, he always reacted as if the facts fitted exactly into his plans and calculations.
He only lost his composure in some very well-chosen circumstances, and even then it was just a momentary menacing glare followed by some yells aimed at coaxing someone who had been annoyingly resistant to his arguments.
It was usually gone so quick that everyone was convinced it was just a façade, and that there was no real fire inside Roderick Crowley.
He resumed talking in the same monotone voice, ‘I can barely wait for you to kick Alastair off Hell’s Bells’.
‘What?’, Meg looked at Charlie, the secretary, to see if that was a surprise to her, but the woman was smirking, so she turned to Crowley again, ‘You want me to plot with you against one of the oldest and most powerful Board Directors?’
‘No, no plotting with me. I want nothing with that’, Crowley adjusted his lapels unnecessarily, ‘Everybody knows Alastair has been using the company for some dirty business, and no one has the guts to take him down. I’m not directly affected by whatever he does, but I’d hate for the whole enterprise to be ruined because some moron decided to use his position of power for disgusting pursues’.
‘If it doesn’t affect you, what do you gain putting me there?’
Crowley looked away with a slight frown in his face, and for a moment Meg wondered if he was seeing in his mind the things Alastair did.
Crowley blinked, the frown was gone, and he looked at Meg again, ‘I know of your abilities and capacity. I want to give you the opportunity to take his place or be crushed’.
‘Didn’t it cross your mind that I could just ally with him?’
‘That’s the point: you won’t’, there was a rare glimmer in his eyes, ‘Two snakes from different species together may pretend they respect each other, but they’re just studying the enemy. Sooner or later, they are going to attack’, Crowley leaned a bit forward, ‘Who is going to win? The one who bites first? The one who bites better?’, he shrugged, ‘Anyway, I get rid of one of you, and that’s enough of a win-win situation for me’.
Meg looked at the contract in her hands again.
If he was being sincere – and he was always annoyingly sincere –, he was putting her in a position where he thought she had a chance of being successful.
He was even counting on the possibility of her getting rid of an enemy.
Not accepting the offer was admitting she didn’t think she could take off Alastair, and she knew she could. She had been researching his life and his business tactics, already, knowing there was a real possibility of attack and victory, there.
She knew enough to get the old man to his knees now; she probably needed not more than a month as an inside woman to throw him through the front door, humiliated – or even better, in jail, with Lucifer.
That’s why she had been wanting so hard that position, in fact.
‘I’ll take it’, Meg said, extending her hand for a pen.
‘You can read it first’, Crowley said, picking a pen but not putting it in her hand, yet.
‘The Geek wrote it down?’
‘Yes, it was me’, Charlie confirmed.
‘And the Demon Boss dictated the terms?’
‘Yes, I did’, Crowley answered, unamused, ‘To the last word’.
‘Then I don’t need to worry’, she grabbed the pen, ‘Everybody knows you’re the unicorns of the company – honest, correct, work-oriented, righteous’, she finished signing and stood, gave the pen back to Crowley and the papers to Charlie, ‘I surely won’t miss you’.
Crowley got up, too and, seeing the woman had already turned towards the door, he called, ‘Just one more thing, if you’ll permit me’.
Meg stopped and turned back, waiting.
‘You can take it as an advice, or a hint. I don’t care. And you may not follow it – is your call. However, I ask you to not brush what I’m going to say aside just because it came from me’.
She leaned her head, showing she had understood and was ready to listen.
‘When you start working for Alistair, be alert to everything, especially if he asks you small favors. He is known to lure people with quick offers of trust – delegating tasks and making them feel welcomed and important’, Crowley frowned, eyes astray for a moment, but gulped down and went on, ‘When you realize, he is asking – or has already asked – for something you haven’t quite noticed is wrong or not completely legal, and from that point on, you find it difficult to deny him anything. He finds your weakness – addiction, pride, loneliness – and goes right at it until you find yourself trapped’.
The man looked away again.
Meg wondered if he was dealing with some bad memories.
He had been very close to Alistair and Lilith (the late co-founder of the firm) when he first arrived, but something had happened among them – something so disturbing that Crowley suddenly arranged a cooperation term with another company and stayed off for weeks.
After Lilith’s death, the company went through some reorganization; he came back, and his meteoric rising through Selling happened.
The bosses were all related to or had been trained by Lucifer before he was put in jail, and mocking Crowley for being a foreigner, a stranger and just treating him like a peasant came easily to them. However, he had resisted every attack against him, standing up for his ideas, for years.
At that point, Meg was sure he was going to end up President.
But then Alistair got tired of staying in a corner watching the repetitive bullying and stepped up.
Crowley used all his talents and influence, but not to keep the position against Alistair: what he wanted, in fact, was to end up anywhere but with Alistair. If he managed to keep in a high position, better, but that was not, obviously, his priority.
And that was how he settled on HR – a branch no one wanted, but essential for the company to work; a place where he could imprint his style and do whatever he pleased, as long as everything ran smoothly.
Meg often wondered what Alistair could have done that scared away someone like Crowley.
She must be right in her musings about them, because talking about the man put his boss in such nerves that he didn’t recover from the stroll in Memory Lane.
He kept silent, had his hands closed in fists, the eyes not getting back to her face.
Charlie joined in the conversation, like she did every time Crowley needed a break, ‘We’ve had people here making complains against Alistair. Some hardcore stuff – blackmail, abusive behaviors of all sorts, some hints of drug traffic, like Lucifer – but we couldn’t do anything. There were no witnesses, no recordings, nothing. When people realize what is going on, it’s too late to get any evidence’.
Crowley nodded, hands still clenching, and added, ‘We know you don’t care for people in general. You despise most of the regular folk. That is probably one of the reasons you hate Human Resources and wanted so badly to get out of here’, he lifted his eyes to her face, ‘What we are saying is: don’t let him make one of those losers out of you’.
Meg squinted at them, ‘You’re kind of saying that I was right thinking I’m better than a lot of the people around’.
‘Don’t be foolish’, Crowley made a dismissive gesture, ‘We just count on you to be our… How did you call it, darling?’
Charlie grinned, ‘Our anti-hero’.
‘Exactly. You’re a high-functioning sociopath, like him. It means you can do whatever is necessary without any matters of conscience. We’re cheering for you in this battle because we believe your interests will coincide, this time, with the greater good’.
Meg shook her head, a shadow of a smile appearing on her face, ‘Ok, unicorns. I’ll keep that in mind’.
She nodded at them curtly and left the room.
When the door closed behind her, both people breathed in relief.
‘Have you seen the bounce in her step?’, Charlie was amused, ‘She really enjoys the back-stabbing thing’.
‘She makes me nauseous’, Crowley left himself fall on his chair, ‘The unnecessary violence. The lack of subtlety and elegance’, he shrugged.
‘At least she accepted the offer and is gone, now’.
The secretary spoke while pretending to wipe off the chair where the other woman had been.
When she was satisfied, she occupied it.
And then she stayed there, with a big grin directed at her boss.
Knowing her shenanigans, he squinted at her, ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I have a replacement to suggest’.
‘What?’, Crowley sat straighter, a hint of fear in his usually sated features, ‘You don’t want her position?’
‘No, I don’t want her position. And, before you get the wrong idea: no, I’m not leaving. I just don’t want other position in this office’, she smirked, ‘I’m happy with Uber Secretary slash IT Super-Amazing-Secret-Specialist – aka SASS’.
Crowley relaxed and his eyes sweetened.
It was the closer to a real smile that he got.
Charlie was probably the only person who could get that reaction, and both appreciated the kind of relationship they had.
‘Thank you for clarifying it so quickly and precisely’, he said, back to his controlled self, ‘So, you have a candidate for Main Assistant? I wonder what the poor soul could have done for you to want them to share with you the burden of being my personal hands-out’.
‘It’s fun working for you’.
‘I’m known for scheming and out of the box strategies’.
‘Like I said – it’s fun’.
He scoffed.
‘You should stop speaking as if you were some gruesome boss’.
‘The lovely girl who just left the room called me Demon Boss for years’.
‘What girl? The poisonous one?’
He leaned his head, conceding the point.
‘If she had an ounce of humanity she would have loved it here’, Charlie sat at the edge of her seat for emphasis, ‘Where else you would get paid to do research on people, study their behavior, compare data and convince them to change departments through nudge or coercion?’
‘The coercion part she kind of enjoyed’.
‘Not that much. She always said she would prefer we didn’t have the person’s interest as the main goal. She often tried to be cruel just for kicks’.
Crowley frowned as if trying to understand that twisted logic, ‘That’s probably the most detrimental way to conduct business…’, then, he leaned his head, ‘Did you have a point?’
‘Yeah. Sorry’, Charlie stretched her arms like she did when she was going to start a good story or use her beloved keyboard, then settled them down again, joining her hands on her lap, her eyes bright and joyful, ‘He is the nicest guy to be around and I really would like to have him here’.
‘You mean in HR or in Hell’s Bells?’
‘He does not work here. He doesn’t even live in the city’.
Crowley was intrigued, ‘Does he have a profession or you’re bringing me a pity case?’
‘He has done a lot. Mechanic, guide for Japanese tourists in America – he speaks the language –, private teacher, cataloguer, librarian’, she counted, ‘Lately he was working as a freelancer for journalists: guy can find out anything in any book or in the internet, check-up facts and deliver them organized, all in mere hours. He loves research of all kinds and is a genius at it – exactly the type we need here’.
‘And this genius of yours needs a new job because…?’
‘Because he is an old-fashioned dude – caring, loyal, honest, with a heart of gold’, she said with a smile, then got fierce, ‘And we know how journalists can be. Many don’t have much ethics to get what they think is a good story. They’ll expose people. They’ll stalk them when they are at their worst’, she shrugged, ‘He doesn’t want to be a part of it. He started refusing jobs, and the word spread that he is surly and unmanageable’.
‘And he is not?’
‘You wouldn’t believe how sweet he is’, she spoke fondly, ‘The most well-read gentleman you’ll ever meet’.
Crowley made a face, ‘Our dear Meg would say you want me to hire another unicorn’.
‘And she would be right’, Charlie agreed enthusiastically, ‘Come on! We need to unite!’
‘You mean us, the unicorns?’
‘Yeah!’
Again, the corners of his mouth lifted a bit.
Sometimes, Charlie almost managed to get some of the painful memories off his soul.
That girl was a bless to him.
Well, there was no reason not to give her suggestion a try.
‘Do you think he can be here tomorrow for an interview?’
‘He’ll make it happen’, she stated, ‘He is one of those people who can accomplish anything’.
‘That resourceful?’, Crowley asked and, at her eager nod, he added, ‘You trust him very much’.
‘I’m telling you’, Charlie grinned, ‘You’re going to love him!’