Chapter Text
It’s just flowers! Why are you putting yourself in this situation just to get her flowers!
A stupid question, Melissa knew exactly why. The calendar on the wall, flipped up to February with thirteen days crossed off on it were evidence enough of that.
Melissa had gotten the specific idea from a vase that was always present on Velvette’s desk. Always filled with flowers. They were replaced with fresh ones regularly, nobody ever noticed them because they were the same kind of flowers every time.
That was until recently.
Velvette had been discussing online trends and algorithms with Melissa.
Which was normal, Melissa was top priority when it came to being informed about decisions and policy alongside her two counterparts, Ethan and Travis. Well, top after the Vee’s, that’s a-given, they were the ones making all of the policies and decisions after all.
Velvette had paused mid sentence, and Melissa had followed her gaze to the vase which she’d before that moment never given a second thought. For an instant, Velvette looked almost sad.
But as always, that oh so familiar mask of an annoyance when anything that made her feel any negative emotion that wasn’t anger pulled itself down.
“One moment Mel.” Velvette reached onto the desk and slid her phone off of it. She Pushed herself up and out of her chair, already scrolling through her contacts before tapping on the one that she’d been searching for.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothin, I just realized I forgot to have the flowers swapped, this office is supposed to be presentable, can’t have dead flowers.”
”True.”
The phone call was quick, just a few words, someone was already through the door heading for the desk with new ones. A quick switch of the flowers, and they were gone just as quick as they came.
”now that is taken care of. We can keep goin’-“
From that day on, Melissa started catching certain things, the flowers on velvette’s desk appeared in a large portion of her flower scents, in nearly all of her floral patterns.
anything flower related or flower adjacent, they were there!
It was becoming increasingly clear to Melissa that Velvette Really liked those flowers.
She knew that she would get her the flowers.
-Well that was where she got the idea on what her gift would be. Not that she wanted to get her a gift. That went all the way back to last year.
Like any other year on this day of this month, all social platforms were flooded with what who got what and who got what for who on Valentine’s Day. Velvette’s thing besides fashion being social media, she was constantly seeing all these posts.
Shit even when she looked up from the screen she was seeing it, her business partners were in the worst kept secret relationship ever, especially on Valentine’s Day, to be fair could you expect any less when one of them is quite literally named VALENTINo?
Velvette said mostly nothing other than the practically obligatory at this point “Get a fuckin’ room already!”
But that didn’t stop Melissa from catching the faint sound of crying coming from behind Velvette’s locked office door later that night. She almost knocked, before self preservation kicked in and she backed off rather than risk getting ripped apart.
Or, if Velvette was really that upset, the worse possibility of getting fired.
Her body could rebuild in less than a week, no (physical) scarring left behind, but a career like the one she had right now? The second coming was more likely to happen before she would recover.
It was a very nice job especially for hell, for one the health benefits were better than the job she’d had on earth.
Which says a lot about the state of Earth when the benefits for dead people working at a company founded by an actual serial killer, who couldn’t even have health issues were better than the benefits for those still alive, but Melissa was already dead, not her problem anymore. the pay was nearly unmatched. And the Vees were generally kinder to their personal assistants, (except for Ethan, the poor bastard.)
But also a very lonely one for that very reason.
Regular employees were sinners in literal hell just as Melissa and her boss and most of the pride ring’s population were.
You just need to expect ever sinners is going to be a jealous person, statistically one in seven of every sinner in hell is there because of how envious they acted in life for gods sake! Hell common sense 101!
They weren’t even the worst. Those who weren’t jealous were the ones who scared her the most. At times more than all three of the Vee’s together. Mostly the ones who were resigned to work there no matter what because their contracts included soul ownership.
Those were the ones who’d been there long enough for their hatred towards the bosses fester like a deep infected wound.
Although never spoken out loud, they didn’t need to. it’s not like the true extent of their hatred could be put into any words.
Their hatred had metastasized into everything, merely existing was enough to get the point across to others that they hated the people they worked for.
Those people were all justified in their own ways, nobody could deny that. (although would never dare to express that idea anywhere besides inside the deep recesses of their own heads.)
But they went further, none of them could not nor would ever be able to take that hatred out on the Vee’s themselves. That fact forced them look elsewhere, pushed them into distracting themselves to the point they would sometimes forget why they were so angry at all.
For some it was their work.
For others it was substances.
But for another group, it was simply taking those desires, and enacting them onto sinners they were more likely to get away with enacting them onto. Subtlety or blatantly.
Losing the ability to separate the Vee’s from those that the Vee’s surrounded themselves with, all the ones who played extra nice. ‘The suck-ups’ as they’d call them.
Or, even worse to them, the ones who were close enough to the Vee’s for long enough for something to develop. That somewhere, anywhere deep down the nice compliant facade was god forbid, something almost genuine.
And it was becoming increasingly apparent to those on the fashion floor, that Melissa fell into that last category. Although good for her career wise at the moment, and to an extent safety wise with it putting her firmly on the Vee’s “good side” whatever that actually meant if anything at all.
And that’s where it got lonely.
It was an option to socialize with other employees. A option most people chose.
However it was not an option to interact with the Vees. Especially the one that had your contract.
Early on in her time at the company, when she’d been under contract for Vox.
She was treated the same way as all the regular employees, that being like absolute fucking garbage.
Except for that one time Vox got wasted and called her into his office to cry for three hours and ramble to her about his daughter. (Correction, the oldest of his daughters, as she’d come to learn from him that night, he had three.) Sure he hadn’t spoken a word to her since he died in 52.. and sure this special “if therapy was a million times more sad, and you were also the therapists boss” therapy session took place in 1997…but again, he was wasted.
Actually that probably still counted as equally, everyone had their own story from him, one for each time he got drunk and happened to be near the pager.
Without NDA’s (and in the unlikely case that anything more than 40% of the drunk crying wasn’t over the radio demon) the whole of voxtek could’ve probably created a timeline of every hour of the days making up the important portions of his life from the age of 18 to the second he died.
But back to the point.
Back then, she was just ‘employee number whatever” and that made it easy to make friends, because everyone around her was “employee number whatever.”
Until one day she was called into a newly renovated section of the tower, with five other employees, and this small plastic doll woman who reeked of the human world was brought in, and told to pick her favorite one of the six. And by chance, she picked Melissa.
Melissa didn’t complain (not like she was allowed to) It came with a raise, and if she was honest, this doll woman, even with her short fuse (no wonder why vox grew so fond of her so fast, she was in many ways a mini version of him.) was cute, obviously in the conventionally attractive way, Velvette was the fashion standard. But also in her own way in certain moments.
Like when eyes sparked to life every time she finally got that design sketch juuust right. Her excitement when she got a genius idea, she’d go running to her desk so fast sometimes she drop her phone and not even realize.
Melissa was always there to pick it up and return it to her though, so it didn’t really matter.
But in gaining her connection with Velvette, Melissa had lost everyone else. One by one her friends stopped talking to her, it started with just the basic fact that most of her friends were still under contract for vox, and they weren’t ever near each other.
Melissa wasnt making any new friends to fill that space left in her new role either, nobody wanted to approach her because that always meant they’d by extension be approaching Velvette, literally, since Velvette always had Melissa near her.
Those who did have the time were the jealous or bitter ones, Angel couldn’t even look at her anymore when he realized that Melissa seemed happier somehow.
Melissa would never admit it out of the context of it being ‘just something to placate velvette.’ As she’d say afterwards to the few people left who’d even give her the time of day. Despite the loneliness, she was happier. Even when Velvette got upset, she was never happier than when she was near her. (partially because that anger was never truly directed at Melissa)
Melissa had never paid attention to others really in a romantic or sexual way since she’d died, and before that a few guys here and there, it wasn’t her priority. And who in their right mind would try to find someone IN HELL? But Again, it was only like that until Velvette.
If Melissa had to pinpoint a moment that it clicked in her head, it would be when she was put in charge of supervising one of Velvettes photoshoots for the love potion announcement.
Melissa hadn’t been informed beforehand that it was a covered nude photoshoot. Melissa suddenly couldn’t look at her.
“Ms. Melissa, are you okay?”
“Nobody told me that this was a…”
”You’ve worked here for years is this not normal for you to see?”
”Not when it’s my boss.”
Velvette seemed to overhear as she waves for everyone to stop,
“Get me out of this glass, someone get me a towel!! Did NONE of you debrief my assistant on this!? YES you should warn her before hand, ya dumb fuck! I shouldn't have to tell you how to do your fuckin job!”
“On that note, how is she supposed to do her fuckin job if shes being distracted!? Mel, take a step outside. SOMEONE GET VAL DOWN HERE FOR FUCKS SAKE!!”
Val! Right!
What happened to this being about flowers
[The fourth wall can shove it, if A 130 year old deer man can break it constantly, I can do it at least once]
Shit. Melissa was still standing in the hallway like an idiot, spaced out.
She’d just come here to ask about flowers.
Maybe she shouldn’t be asking val.
It wasn’t like Vox could help her anymore, he isn’t even really the overlord tv man anymore, well he kinda still is, just minus the man part.
Fuck it.
“Excuse me, Mr. Valentino? Sorry to bother you, I just need help with something.”
The insect man put his cigarette out on the employee beside him, despite his ashtray being closer. He didn’t even bother turning around, instead he leaned back far enough so his head was upside down and facing Melissa.
“What? I’m busy.”
”Its about Velvette-
Val straightened up and flipped over so he was facing her, knocking over the employee beside him.
Melissa cringed as the employee landed on their neck.
he rested his head on his hand, elbows on the back cushions, and kicked his feet.
”I’m not busy at all, give it to me baby, I want everything.” He waved off the employee, who very quickly obliged, scrambling to their feet and rushed out of the room.
“I just needed permission to use my pay for flowers.”
Val momentarily deflated a little, clearly hoping for something a little juicier.
“Oh…a little basic but basic because it works…I dont think I would’ve ever pegged you as the romantic type, haha..’pegged’.”
Val laughs lazily to himself for a few seconds, eventually turning his attention back to Melissa.
“So, like, roses?”
Melissa takes out her phone, the image already pulled up.
”These, there in almost all of her flower themes, her perfumes, she constantly has fresh ones on her desk.”
”Those? I don’t even think I would’ve ever noticed that. So you like, want her want her then.”
“I guess you could say that…?”
”I meeeaaan…not judging or anything, it’s Velvette, you’d have to be literally crazy to be a girl into girls and not want her. But isn’t that kinda obsessive to even pick that up?”
“She’d kill me for the things id have to tell you to explain myself, so Im not even gonna attempt to.” Melissa blurted out.
“Sorry- I meant to say-.” Val put a finger to her face to shush her.
“Velvette is still mad at me for dismembering her model last year, I’d like to keep myself on speaking terms with my bestie, so you’re safe, just remember to thank her for that when you two are hooking up tomorrow night.” With another one of his hands, he was pulling out his phone.
“What color?”
“A red leaning pink ideally, if they have those, the real ones she has are white but all the photos and patterns she have of them are red.”
Val looks up at her and raises an eyebrow.
”Okay, babe, I see you. And they do come in that color! But the only listings online in that color are potted. You sure?”
”Gifting her a live one might actually be better..do they do wrappings, I’d like it to have..maybe a big bow?”
“Thank. god. you aren’t too boring at least, thats like one of the only rules I have for accepting anyone Vel dates, if she had dated anyone yet since I’ve known her. Now, this is the shit Vox usually has to stay, but he’s not here now, ‘just because I’m ordering it doesn’t mean you aren't paying for it, this is just gonna come out of your next paychek, blah blah blah, you understand.”
“Yes.”
“Great!” Val clapped with his lower set of hands.
“Alright now, seriously, I am busy, painful as it is and as much as I love to be nosy, I’ll just call Velvette later for details. Splitting Vox’s shit means getting all of his dumb work.”
Val groaned
Good luck I guess, hope you get laid. Now get out.”
Melissa didn’t need to be asked twice.