Work Text:
Where was this guy’s office again? 4th floor, room…was it 407 or 408?
Friede mumbled to himself as he stepped out of the elevator, dragging along with him an egregious amount of papers and reports. He shifted his arms to try and stabilize the stack a bit; carrying them was bad enough, he didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he dropped them and had to reorganize them all.
Normally, this type of work wasn’t even on him. Unfortunately for him, however, he owed one of his coworkers—who he couldn’t remember the name of for the life of him, the guilt over it possibly lending a hand to him agreeing to throwing himself into this mess—a favor after said coworker covered for a mistake he’d made a few months back. That favor led to his current predicament; he found himself stuck delivering this tower of papers to one of the company’s higher ups.
That higher up in question certainly had quite a reputation, Friede wryly smirked to himself. He didn’t even know the guy’s name, yet he could always tell when someone was referring to the guy in conversation. After all, nobody had anything good to say about his personality. Friede heard him described a million different ways, though never anything positive. His coworkers described the guy as “cold” one day, then “condescending” the next, and if it had been a particularly bad week, they’d go straight to calling him an asshole. (In hushed voices—there were rumors that he had eyes and ears everywhere, and for good reason. Nothing could escape him.) Yet nobody could deny that despite how infuriating the guy’s personality could get, he was damn good at his work. Every paper finished on time, perfectly organized, hell, the guy basically became the building’s IT guy after he got tired of everyone’s “absolute incompetence” with their computers. Which meant that no matter how many times people reported him to HR, he’d face zero consequences.
Despite working at Exceed for a good while, Friede had never come face to face with the infamous higher up. He considered that a blessing with all the horror stories others told him, yet by the looks of it that blissful ignorance ended today. Stopping between the doors of rooms 407 and 408, he glanced back and forth between them, trying yet again to remember which door belonged to the guy’s office. Eventually he settled for room 408 ( it’s a bigger number, and he’s in some manager position, so..?)
Unfortunately, he had no way of knocking on the door, let alone opening it, with his hands preoccupied by all the paperwork. He tried shuffling the papers around to somehow free a hand, before giving up and just kicking the door a few times. Rude, sure, but from what he’s heard about this guy, he probably deserved it.
Judging by the cold and unamused face that greeted him as the door creaked open, he figured he chose the right door (though, oddly enough, said face shifted to something he couldn’t quite name; surprise? It didn’t look particularly negative, he thought). The other man glanced down at the papers he held—which were coming dangerously close to slipping out of his grasp—and wordlessly opened the door further, inviting him inside. He caught himself before he could rush to the nearest table and set down his luggage. The higher up (he had to figure out this guy’s name, he can’t just call him “the higher up” forever, Friede thought to himself) had a reputation for being a neat freak, and making work a living hell for anyone who ruined any tiny thing in his meticulously organized office. “Where do you want these..?” He glanced over at the other man, who gestured towards an empty spot on his desk, yet again without a word. Friede rushed over to where he pointed, finally freeing himself from the burden of his coworkers’ blood, sweat, and tears poured into papers that would likely find themselves shredded at the bottom of a garbage bin—research was ruthless . He sighed in relief, finally getting to stand up straight, bringing up the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
Then he remembered he was not alone in this office, instead accompanied by its extremely judgemental and unpleasant owner.
With his newfound freedom from all the papers, he took an actual look at the man he stood with. He tried to bury the first thought crossing his mind: this guy is really pretty. Clearly well kept, too—his hair showed clear proof of some fancy products used, and his face nearly flawless (minus some pretty glaring dark circles under his eyes, but in Friede’s eyes that just added to the look.) He felt underdressed somehow, despite the two of them wearing the same branded lab coats. Most jarring, though, was the other man’s expression—Friede expected something along the lines of the disapproving glare he gave when Friede first opened the door, yet instead he looked…amused? Content?
“You’re Friede, yes?” He startled at the direct address. How did this guy even know his name? Friede didn’t think he was particularly well known outside his area of research, especially not to someone so high up in the company. He willed down the cold sweat threatening to start from his nervousness.
Friede let out a nervous (and very clearly forced) chuckle, bringing his hand back to rub at his neck as a nervous tick. “Yep, that’s me. How did you..?” He trailed off. He figured the most likely reason was that he did something wrong somehow, but even then how would this guy know? It would have to be bad for it to travel this much.
“I assure you it’s nothing negative. Quite the opposite, actually,” the other man reassured him, almost as if reading his mind. His grin grew, and Friede felt a shiver go down his spine—now that he wasn’t distracted by the guy’s pretty face, he felt there was something… off about the grin. Almost sinister.
Before he could continue his train of thought, the other man stepped almost uncomfortably closer, reaching for Friede’s unoccupied hand and taking it into his own in a handshake. “Spinel,” he introduced himself. “I’ve been keeping tabs on you for a while.”
What.
Before Friede could horribly misinterpret(?) what that meant, Spinel continued. “I’ve read all of your reports through the years. It’s rare to find someone actually competent here, I’m sure you understand.” He let out an internal sigh of relief at the clarification, before freezing as he processed the other man’s words. Friede’s brow furrowed, a bit annoyed. He’d seen how hard his coworkers worked on their own research, and this guy—Spinel, was it?---discredited all that effort, just like that? He could understand everyone’s comments on the guy’s bad attitude—that took a special kind of arrogance and self-importance.
Friede stepped back and shook the other’s hand off his—which, now that he thought about it, that handshake lasted far too long. His eyes narrowed as he glared at Spinel. “If you’re going to try and flatter me, don’t drag everyone else down to do so. They put their all into this—” he started, with a sharp and clearly displeased tone, before cutting himself off, realizing that insulting his superior was not a good look . He wouldn’t be fired over this, would he? Others had told him many a story of Spinel’s absolute pettiness, most of which stemming from far smaller incidents. Though honestly, he’d been looking for an excuse to leave for a while, but even then he wanted to leave on a high note. Getting fired would not be a high note.
He dragged his attention back to Spinel, bracing himself for what would become his own horror story to tell about the other man (if he could make it back to the break room without getting fired here and now) and rushing to come up with some sort of apology or excuse, only to find absolutely no anger or annoyance written on his face. Instead, Spinel chuckled, still with that unnerving grin. Friede had the feeling he just walked right into some sort of trap.
“I knew you’d be the righteous type,” Spinel smirked, while Friede debated on whether to just sigh in relief that this didn’t go south or to question what on Earth just happened. “Regardless, their results just don’t match up to yours.” Friede choked on yet another irritated response when Spinel reached up and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look him right in the eyes while stepping back to that uncomfortably close distance.
“Really, I don’t see why you let yourself get dragged down. You could do so much more.” Friede felt a drop of sweat make its way down his jaw at the dangerous look in the other man’s eyes, as well as heat rushing to his cheeks (though oddly enough, he couldn’t really describe it as completely unpleasant). He tried to rip his gaze away, though unsuccessfully as Spinel yanked him back to face him. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I do hope you don’t disappoint me.”
When the last word left Spinel’s mouth, he finally released his grasp on Friede’s chin. He stood like a deerling in headlights, staring at the other man, who only smirked in response. “Now, unfortunately I have work to do, so I must ask you to leave. I do hope to see you again.” Spinel waved him off, albeit reluctantly. Friede wordlessly nodded and left the room, still trying to process what just happened.
As soon as he heard the door click shut behind him, his thoughts finally caught up to him.
What the fuck was that? He reached a hand up to rub at his jaw where Spinel had grabbed. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, trying and failing to bring it back down to normal. It’s just the adrenaline, he told himself.
Friede didn’t even know how to feel. Spinel went from flattery and compliments one second to treating him almost as a plaything the next, then just waving him off like nothing happened? He was almost worse than everyone else described him. Yet at the same time, his still warm cheeks and palpitating heart betrayed that he didn’t exactly hate it. Which honestly made the whole situation even worse, in his eyes.
He finally peeled himself away from the door, dragging himself back over to the elevator. When he got home, he would take a long, long nap, he decided. Friede felt like he earned it after all of that.
For the sake of his own sanity, he hoped he’d never run into Spinel again. He willed down his subconscious’ protests as he stepped into the elevator to start his descent.
—
Spinel dropped into his office chair, bringing his hand up to cover his grin as he giggled almost maniacally. The wait made his gains ever sweeter, he thought.
After so long of waiting for the perfect opportunity to come in contact with Friede, the chance finally came. And he didn’t even have to do anything—the other man just came to him himself!
There was no way he could focus on the work he had to complete. His heart and thoughts rushed far too much to focus on anything at the moment. Anything other than him.
He brought his free hand over to his desktop’s mouse, opening a password locked file to record his recent encounter. The folder held nearly hundreds of files, all centered around the same man. From pictures to notes to personally annotated versions of every single one of the other man’s reports, he had it all. Spinel rarely found anyone that could match up to him (in terms of intelligence, at least. As much as he hated to admit it, practically anyone could best him in physical strength), so could anyone really blame him for getting so thrilled when he finally did? And as a bonus, the other man was very easy on the eyes.
He truly, truly looked forward to the next time they’d meet. After finally getting a taste of him face to face, he would not let go easily.